Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

Council of Ministers

Mr. Canavan: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food when he next expects to meet his EEC counterparts.

Mr. Farr: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what discussions he has had recently with the Council of Ministers and with the European Commission.

Mr. Molloy: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food when he next expects to meet his EEC colleagues.

The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. John Silkin): I would refer my hon. Friends and the hon. Member to the statement that I made on 22nd July following the meeting of the Council of Ministers (Agriculture) on 18th-19th July. I will be meeting my colleagues again on on 26th-27th September.

Mr. Canavan: Can my right hon. Friend tell his Common Market counterparts that nowhere is the stupidity of the Common Market so evident as in his three areas of responsibility? In agriculture, it has meant inefficient production. In fisheries, the absence of an exclusive zone continues to threaten the very livelihood of our fishermen. In food, it has meant inflated food prices and mountains of waste. Is it any wonder that yesterday the Labour Party NEC called for the whole question of our Common Market membership to be reopened? It is obvious

that most people were conned in the referendum two years ago.

Mr. Silkin: Certainly the questions that my hon. Friend has suggested relating to agriculture, fisheries and food arose, though my own contribution was perhaps not entirely couched in the language which my hon. Friend has just used. However, I hope that it was effective.

Mr. Farr: Is the Minister correctly reported in today's newspapers to be urging in Brussels the lowering of the beef intervention buying point to 85 per cent. of the reference price? If that is so, how can it do other than further erode producers' confidence and increase uncertainty among beef producers in Great Britain?

Mr. Silkin: I have not seen the article in question, so I am afraid that I cannot comment upon it.

Mr. Torney: When my right hon. Friend next meets his EEC counterparts, will he raise with them, or urge them, or coerce them, or threaten them—I do not mind which—on the question of purchasing inferior quality beef from third countries? My right hon. Friend may be aware that that beef is required for manufacture, and that the manufacturing industries in this country will perish if he does not get this inferior manufacturing beef from third countries.

Mr. Silkin: There is an important point here relating to what my hon. Friend calls inferior quality beef. However, it is tied up with the much wider question of a freer, more liberal importation into this country of beef from third countries in general and from Commonwealth countries in particular.

Mr. Powell: Will the Minister continue to derive support and encouragement in his work at Brussels from the assertion of the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs that this Parliament and the British people, when they consider it fit, are entitled to review the whole question of this country's membership of the EEC?

Mr. Silkin: I do not think that that is a matter entirely for me, but I am interested to hear from the right hon. Gentleman what my right hon. Friend said on the matter.

Mr. James Johnson: Will the Minister accept that this is not a hypothetical question? In the event of our people not getting a 12-mile exclusive zone, will the Minister then stick out for a 50-mile exclusive economic zone?

Mr. Silkin: I think that I made that clear in my statement on 22nd July, but it is perhaps worth reiterating. The position that I took up with my Common Market colleagues at the last meeting remains the position of Her Majesty's Government. We want to preserve the twin objectives of which I have always spoken to the House—conservation of fish and conservation of the livelihood of our people. If by being a little more flexible we can preserve those objectives, certainly we shall do so. If not, our original proposal remains on the table, and that is the proposal which our colleagues will have to deal with.

Mr. Watt: When the Minister next meets his EEC counterparts, will he discuss with them the malfunctioning of the co-efficient of MCAs and the grossly unfair methods of calculating these coefficients that has militated against the export of meat and lamb from Britain?

Mr. Silkin: There are times when I think that this is practically the sole topic of conversation in Brussels. We discuss it again and again.

Fish Stocks (Conservation)

Mr. Costain: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what further measures he intends to take to conserve fish stocks within United Kingdom 200-mile limits.

Mr. Wall: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement about his further discussions on a common fisheries policy and British requests for adequate conservation.

Mr. John Silkin: I refer the hon. Members to the statement that I made on 22nd July when I reported to the House the outcome of the Council of Ministers (Agriculture) on 18th-19th July. We are continuing to review the necessary further conservation measures for safeguarding fish stocks and will not hesitate to press these when the Council resumes its discussions.

Mr. Costain: I thank the Minister for that answer. Does he appreciate that the fishermen on the South Coast of England, who have seen how the French and the Belgians have over-fished their areas, are concerned about this issue? Will he confirm that he has power to bring in conservation measures that affect all nations? Will he take such action as he considers necessary, appreciating that modern electronic devices do not really give the fish a fair chance?

Mr. Silkin: I do not know about giving the fish a fair chance—it is the fishermen with whom I am primarily concerned. But the hon. Gentleman has put his finger—his fish finger—on an important point, which is that it becomes more and more clearly essential to preserve our national right to apply conservation measures. This must be the case whether or not I can negotiate a sensible permanent régime in the near future. That is something that it is vital for us to have. But that should not prevent us from looking at the sort of conservation measures that were, I think, implicit in the hon. Gentleman's Question.

Mr. Jay: Has my right hon. Friend noticed that Norway, which had the wisdom to stay out of the EEC, has obtained a 200-mile exclusive zone? Does he agree that if we had stayed out we could have done the same?

Mr. Silkin: My right hon. Friend should be aware that I consider that we have a 200-mile zone. The waters up to 200 miles from the shores of these islands are our waters, as I have so often said to the House. They are under our sovereignty and under our jurisdiction.

Mr. Hicks: Is the Minister not aware of the anxiety felt in the South-West about the future of mackerel stocks? Is he not also aware that last year double the quota recommended by his Ministry staff was fished? Can this situation go on?

Mr. Silkin: The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. I must confess that I and my officials are deeply concerned. We may, if we are not careful, see exactly the same thing happening to mackerel as has been happening to herring. We are therefore studying the measures that will need to be taken to protect what we regard as a valuable stock—incidentally, a stock that I hope the British housewife


will become more accustomed to eating. In any case, this is a stock which will be a valuable trade-off in the future.

Mr. Beith: Is the Minister aware that he will receive widespread backing in the House if he takes and prepares further measures to ensure conservation within the areas that we recognise as being needed for our British fishing industry? Does he also realise that there is a danger to our excellent record of conservation if we fail to regulate the South-West mackerel fishery?

Mr. Silkin: I thought that that was implicit in my reply. This is a matter that we are studying with a great degree of urgency. In this case study must lead to action. What is true in the South-West is true, in varying degrees, throughout the fishing areas around our shores.

Mr. Skinner: Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is rather strange—indeed, most curious—that hon. Members on the Opposition Benches, including the Liberals, but principally the Tories, while complaining about the Common Market at present are actually acting as saboteurs of the European party which the Leader of the Opposition proclaimed in that so-called famous speech somewhere on the Continent recently? Does my right hon. Friend find it necessary to answer these questions? Why bother with them? They did not seem to matter when we entered the Common Market.

Mr. Silkin: I ought not to act as an apologist for all hon. Members on the Benches opposite. As I look round, I see one or two hon. Members who at the time took much the same view as does my hon. Friend. But, on the main point, I think that it is right that these questions should be aired and points be put to me. The reason is that it strengthens my hand if I can say that, whatever the rights and wrongs and the history, the whole House and the country are determined, in a particular situation. If I can do that, it helps a great deal.

Mr. Banks: Does the Minister recognise that if we are to police our fishing grounds adequately we must have the ships to do it? In view of the drastic cuts in defence expenditure, will he make representations to his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence to ensure that sufficient funds are available

to enable this work to be undertaken by the Royal Navy?

Mr. Silkin: I have always believed it to be vital that we have an efficient and, if necessary, an expanded fishery protection service. I am sure that this is right, and I shall do my best to see that we have the means whereby we can protect our own fishery resources.

Central Veterinary Laboratory

Mr. Pattie: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, in the light of the industrial action being taken by the staff at the Central Veterinary Laboratory, Weybridge, in pursuit of their claim for London weighting allowance, if he will make a statement.

Mr. John Silkin: I have received a deputation of representatives of Ministry staff from the Central Veterinary Laboratory and am in communication with my right hon. and noble Friend Lord Peart.

Mr. Pattie: Will the Minister accept that although the staff at the Central Veterinary Laboratory do not regard themselves as being in dispute with his Ministry they are looking to him to urge their case not only with his noble Friend but with his hon. Friend the Minister of State, Civil Service Department? Will the right hon. Gentleman accept also that although, no doubt, the staff will continue to exercise their customary sense of responsibility, if this work to rule continues after the holiday season it is likely to increase its impact to the detriment of the service provided by this world-famous establishment?

Mr. Silkin: I also pay tribute to the staff. I think that they have behaved in a very responsible way. I regard myself, obviously, as having a strong interest whenever they feel a sense of grievance. I have put their points to my noble Friend and to my hon. Friend, but, as the hon. Gentleman rightly conceded, it is a matter that does not lie within my power except within circumscribed limits. Like the hon. Gentleman, I hope that the dispute will be settled soon.

European Community (Expenditure)

Mr. Marten: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement on the increased expenditure by the EEC following decisions of the price review.

Mr. John Silkin: Information on the cost of the 1977 price fixing has been made available to the House in documents R/851/77 and R/1226/77. My aim at this year's price negotiations was to achieve the maximum restraint on common support prices and the increases finally agreed were the lowest for several years.

Mr. Marten: But is not the sum of £50 million, which, I think, we are due to receive for the butter subsidy, more than cancelled out by the £60 million that we have to pay in on the amended supplementary budget No. 1? That being so, does it not show that we should now stop this charade of financial obfuscation and move over to a national agricultural policy that is under our own control?

Mr. Silkin: I hesitate to correct the hon. Gentleman's figures, but I understand that the butter subsidy is worth £65 million, not £50 million.

Mr. Marten: That is not what is said on the document I have here.

Mr. Silkin: I think that that is, in fact, what has emerged. The other factor is the value to the consumer of the butter subsidy. I do not want to get dragged into the butter subsidy issue, because I know that that was not the main thrust of the hon. Gentleman's question, but it is a fact that the reduction of 10p per pound, which has been fairly widespread, has helped the British consumer very much, from the days when the hon. Gentleman and I thought that there might be an increase of 18p or 19p a pound, as he well remembers.
I agree that there are unsatisfactory features in the general financing of the situation.

Mr. Raphael Tuck: Can my right hon. Friend say whether this country has derived any benefits whatever from the £700 million per year that it has to pay to the common agricultural fund and, if so, what these benefits are?

Mr. Silkin: If I were to answer this question directly, we should be involved in a very long debate. One would have to consider a balance, partly of advantage and partly of disadvantage. But I have to tell the House that an unamended common agricultural policy is one which,

taking the balance, is not of benefit to this country and ought to be remedied.

Mrs. Dunwoody: Has my right hon. Friend taken note of the fact that, following the marvellous job he did in the price review of keeping the levels as close to small increases as possible, he may find himself this year dealing with a much worse situation, because it seems very likely that we shall have bumper cereal harvests, and we shall then be in an even more ridiculous situation vis-à-vis the intervention prices that have already been fixed?

Mr. Silkin: I do not think that we can be hurt by having a heavy harvest. I think that it must be of help to livestock producers. But, in general, my hon. Friend is quite right, and it remains part of our policy—not the whole, but a part—that the price reductions that we started to obtain this year on institutional prices of commodities in surplus shall be continued and pressed on with.

Mr. Temple-Morris: Is the Minister aware that there are hon. Members—I hope on both sides of the House—who are getting increasingly tired of agricultural Question Time being used—not by the Minister but by certain hon. Members —to present tirades against the Common Market? Is he aware, further, that we need things from the Common Market and we shall not get them if we behave in what I am afraid to say is the ridiculous way in which certain hon. Members behave in relation to what was a democratic decision of the British people?

Mr. Silkin: That is a very wide and philosophical question, but I thank the hon. Gentleman for the compliment that he indirectly but implicitly paid me. What he is saying, of course, is that my reasonable, courteous and gentle way of handling my partners in Europe has been successful.

Mr. Wrigglesworth: Does my right hon. Friend agree that British farmers have benefited in general terms from the common agricultural policy? Can he say by how much they might have benefited as a result of the recent review?

Mr. Silkin: To think of farmers as one collective mass is to give entirely the wrong impression. It depends upon the sort of farming being done. Some


farmers have done better than others. I do not know that one could necessarily do a Gallup Poll on numbers. But one can survey farming sector by sector. In cereals, for example, there have been undoubted benefits. That is why I did not agree totally with my hon. Friend when he made his point. It is also true that the benefits to pig farmers have sometimes been illusory.

Mr. Wiggin: In view of the TUC-Labour Party liaison document published yesterday, which apparently has the blessing of the Prime Minister, in which it is said that deficiency payments shall be extended, will the Minister now say how much more expensive deficiency payments would be to the British Treasury if the same level of prosperity were to be afforded to farmers at the present time? Could it be three, four or five times as much?

Mr. Silkin: To do that, one would have to quantify one basis against another, and it would be a very long calculation. But I cannot remember the Opposition Front Bench attacking—it was one of the few occasions on which they did not—when we managed to get the variable beef premium, which is our own deficiency system, made permanent for the whole year, and possibly permanent in history. Indeed, some Opposition Members have asked why we do not extend the system.

Agricultural Land

Michael Latham: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what administrative priority is given within his Department to the preservation of good agricultural land.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Gavin Strang): The preservation of good agricultural land is one of the highest priorities of the Lands Group in my Department's Headquarters and the Land Services of the Agricultural Development and Advisory Service, in the field.

Mr. Latham: Since the Minister's Department objected to only 20 per cent. of the applications put before it last year and does not even know how many of those applications were subsequently refused, is it surprising that farmers do

not really think that his Department takes its responsibilities seriously?

Mr. Strang: No. The hon. Gentleman is quite unfair in his attitude. It was this Government who, in 1976, placed a statutory requirement on local planning authorities to consult the Ministry of Agriculture if they intended to develop more than 10 acres of agricultural land.

Mr. Newens: In no way do I associate myself with the hon. Member for Melton (Mr. Latham), but does not my hon. Friend agree that present controls are inadequate to prevent the dumping of waste, the removal of topsoil, the laying of concrete and the desecration and destruction of good agricultural land by those people who have no scruples about environmental matters? Does he not think that it is time that the Ministry had another look at this situation? I believe that it is quite unsatisfactory.

Mr. Strang: I agree that this is an area in which we must remain eternally vigilant. We must also recognise that—I know that this is not what my hon. Friend is referring to, and I shall be happy to investigate the specific points that he has raised—the building of new schools, and houses where people can have gardens of their own, represents progress and increases our national wealth. The challenge is not to stop these developments; it is to see that they take place in a way that minimises the loss of agricultural land and, so far as is practicable, are directed to areas of land which are not of such high agricultural potential.

Mr. Peter Mills: Will the Minister bear in mind that, particularly in the South-West of England, there are growing problems over the preservation of good agricultural land? In particular, will he note that there is the possibility of the flooding of hundreds of acres of land for a new reservoir at Roadford? Will he see that a determined effort is made to stop this sort of thing and to ensure that reservoirs are put where they should be—on Dartmoor, or on poor land?

Mr. Strang: I assure the House that the Government are determined to do everything possible to minimize the loss of good land from agriculture. I remind Tory Members that was their Government in


1971 who slackened the situation and weakened the power of the Ministry of Agriculture in these matters.

Land Drainage (Wales)

Wyn Roberts: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what are his powers regarding land drainage in Wales; and if he will take steps to increase them.

Mr. Strang: My right hon. Friend the Minister's land drainage powers in Wales arise under the Water Act 1973 and the Land Drainage Act 1976 and are substantially the same as those in England. They are concerned principally with the execution of general policy, within the national policy for water in England and Wales, and administrative matters in connection with the land drainage functions of the water authorities, internal drainage boards and other drainage authorities.
We have no proposals to increase these powers.

Mr. Roberts: Will the Minister have a look at the Gyffin drainage scheme, in my constituency, and consider whether his powers are adequate to deal with that situation? Does he agree that, in view of the delay on this scheme, his powers are inadequate?

Mr. Strang: I am reminded that the last time that I met the hon. Gentleman was when he took up with me the question of drainage at Llandudno Junction. I understand that since then work has been progressing satisfactorily, and I shall be very happy to investigate the other matter that he has raised today.

Sheepmeat

Mr. Bulmer: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what progress is being made towards the establishment of a sheepmeat régime within the EEC.

The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. E. S. Bishop): The Council of Agricultural Ministers discussed the matter last October. Since then discussions at official level have taken place. The Commission is expected to produce new proposals for a Community régime in the autumn.

Mr. Bulmer: Will the Minister confirm that if no changes are made from 1st

January it will be illegal for the French to put a levy on our sheepmeat? Can he say how much British sheepmeat is reaching the French market through other EEC countries?

Mr. Bishop: I do not have the figures available on the latter point, but I am aware of the situation in relation to the Irish pressure and the European Court case in connection with the French. What we want to avoid is any sudden change or disruption which would have an adverse effect upon the consumer and the producer.

Mr. Marten: What will be the position of the Minister's right hon. Friend when he goes to the Council of Ministers? What stand will he take on behalf of the British people? Has the Minister heard it said by some enthusiastic Europeans that the stand by the Minister on behalf of the British people has, in fact, harmed the Joint European Torus negotiations and delayed a decision on them? If that is so, is not the Common Market a very curious organisation?

Mr. Bishop: I should not like to stray into the area that the hon. Gentleman has mentioned with regard to the JET project. All I can say with regard to the negotiations and the objectives of the British Government—and they are several—is that we want to protect the producer and give him confidence, we want to ensure that there are no unreasonable changes in prices which would affect the consumer, and we want to make sure that there is access for third countries. After all, the Community has to import one-third of its sheepmeat. At the same time, we want to ensure that our own industry can export to France and other countries in the Community.

Mr. Watt: Does the Minister recognise the urgency to establish a sheepmeat régime? What does he propose to do to regulate the trade in live lambs exported to countries such as Holland and Denmark, which are subsequently slaughtered and then sent in through the back door, as it were, to the French market, thus avoiding the levy that is presently paid by those producers who do the right thing and sell carcases from Britain to France?

Mr. Bishop: These are problems of intra-Community trade. There is free


trade among the six old member countries but not among the new three. We are seeking a policy of liberalisation of trade both inside and outside the Community. I take the point about the need for urgency in the matter to which the hon. Gentleman referred.

Pig Production

Mr. Temple-Morris: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what is the current level of the pig breeding herd.

Mr. Crouch: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what steps he proposes taking to bring about a reduction in the subsidy received by importers of pigmeat by way of monetary compensatory amounts and so remove the present advantage to foreign competitors of British pig farmers.

Mr. Bishop: The most recent available figure for the United Kingdom breeding herd is for April, when the number of sows and gilts in pig was estimated to be 827,000.
I know that producers continue to be concerned about the effect the monetary compensatory amounts paid on imports of bacon and ham have on their competitive position. We again stressed the need for urgent agreement on a fairer way of calculating these sums at last week's Council meeting. We received a mixed reception, but we will continue to press our case.

Mr. Temple-Morris: Does the Minister accept that there are few sectors of agriculture under greater threat than is pig production? The statement of the Minister's right hon. Friend has not exactly been optimistic with regard to the future. Does the Minister further accept that the only hope for the future now is a rundown of the industry, with higher prices through shortage, and that that will result quite directly in more import pressure and the eventual driving-out of the British pig producer? What will the Minister do about it?

Mr. Bishop: The House will be aware of the considerable efforts that the Minister has made for the industry in the past, including the 8½ per cent. change in MCAs, the 2·9 per cent. change in the green pound, the subsidy—subsequently

withdrawn—worth £17 million and, recently, the abolition of the ACAs, which, in relation to the Danish exporter, helps us to the extent of £42 a tonne. Those are some of the factors, but we are still pressing in the Community for a recalculation of MCAs. The possibility of much lower cereal prices and the better harvest should, of course, help the livestock industry generally.

Mr. Crouch: Is the Minister aware that the MCAs are now working directly against the British pig producers? Will he tell his right hon. Friend that I regard it as his duty to go to Brussels the moment that the House goes into recess and not come back until he has sorted out the problem? He should seek to solve the problem of the MCAs in calculating a more proper subsidy to allow British pig farmers to stay in business. Will the Minister ask his right hon. Friend to start speaking up in the Cabinet for British farming and food production? If his right hon. Friend is not prepared to do that, will he ask him to resign?

Mr. Bishop: In view of the catalogue of action and effort that my right hon. Friend has deployed in the past, to which I have just made reference, the hon. Gentleman will realise that no one has been pressing more forcibly for the British pig industry than my right hon. Friend. I am glad to know that the hon. Gentleman is behind us in this request—indeed, demand—to recalculate the MCAs. That is the position that we shall press with all the effort that we can.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: Is my right hon. Friend aware that when he answers all these questions from Tory Members he could save a lot of time by just saying that their chickens are now coming home to roost?

Mr. Nicholas Winterton: Will the Minister admit to the House that the situation of the pig producers in this country remains grave and that unless a decision is made very soon the long-term future of the industry is in grave jeopardy? Will he, as Minister of Agriculture in the United Kingdom, take whatever action is necessary to ensure that the pig industry in this country remains a viable one, even if that means that we shall be temporarily unpopular with our European partners?

Mr. Raphael Tuck: Poacher turned gamekeeper.

Mr. Bishop: The hon. Gentleman will recognise that my right hon. Friend took unilateral action to help the pig industry and that he was then required to withdraw the subsidy worth £17 million. Whether the hon. Gentleman is suggesting that we renew the subsidy, I do not know. But I do know that the remedy is mainly in the hands of the Community. We have been pressing for the Community to take unilateral and urgent action on the lines that we have suggested.

Mr. Torney: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the slaughter of pigs cannot go on, because if it does the British pig meat industry will disappear? Does he further agree that the Danes will never be able to make up the shortfall? Therefore, will he bring back, unilaterally, a pig subsidy, despite the bleating and threats of the Common Market?

Mr. Bishop: I am not sure that "bleating" is the right term for pigs, but I take the point. I have made very clear the fact that we were not in any way inhibited from taking action in the past, but we must now look to the Community. The strong views expressed on both sides this afternoon are an indication of the serious position facing the industry.

Mr. Wiggin: Does the Minister accept that this is now the single most serious matter within the agriculture industry? Does he further accept that the pig herd is now one-fifth smaller than at this time last year, and that individual pigs are losing money at the rate of at least £3 a head? Will the Minister indicate, as the House goes into recess for three months, what we should say to our pig producers about their future when they are losing money at this incredible rate?

Mr. Bishop: With regard to slaughterings, there may be an indication that this is a peak in the pig cycle, and there should be a strengthening in the market. We hope and expect that the position regarding cereals and feedstuffs will be helpful to the industry in the immediate future. We do not need to be pressurised more on this matter, because the remedy really lies in the hands of the Community.

Milk

Mr. Peter Mills: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what steps he intends to take to maintain the level of liquid milk consumption in the United Kingdom.

Mr. John Silkin: As my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced on 15th July, the subsidy on liquid milk is to be increased so that the retail price can be held at its present level throughout the rest of the year. The adverse effect of a price increase on the level of consumption will thus be avoided.

Mr. Mills: Is not this a complete reversal of Government policy on these matters? Are we not now having a sort of milk price yo-yo? Does the Minister agree that what is really needed is to see that the economic policies of this country are improved, and the unemployment situation improved, so that the consumer has enough purchasing power, rather than this constant yo-yo in prices?

Mr. Silkin: I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, like myself, will wish to express his appreciation of the hon. Gentleman's support for our economic policy. With regard to the yo-yo-ing of price, it is not the down "yo', if I may put it that way, that matters. It is the up "yo" that matters. It is precisely for that reason that the subsidy was introduced.

Mr. Wm. Ross: As the level of the farm gate price is tied to the percentage of the milk produced that is sold in the liquid market, can the Minister tell us what steps he has taken to maintain the level of the farm gate price to farmers in Northern Ireland after 1st January next?

Mr. Silkin: I cannot at the moment. I should like to be able to do so. Discussions are going on with all interested parties, including, of course, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and the Northern Irish interests. As soon as I possibly can I shall ensure that the House is kept properly informed

Mr. Newens: Will my right hon. Friend have discussions with the Secretary of State for Education and Science about the desirability of reintroducing school


milk for those primary school children who do not have it, as that would not only be good for them in nutritional terms but would be very good for the dairy industry?

Mr. Silkin: The provision of milk for liquid consumption is nutritionally of great importance to this country. It is why we have fought so hard and will continue to fight hard for any institution, like the milk marketing boards, which will protect the liquid milk market. I shall draw to my right hon. Friend's attention the specific point raised by my hon. Friend.

Cheese

Mr. Nicholas Winterton: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether it is his intention to apply for a derogation from the European Community for continued cheese imports to the United Kingdom from New Zealand after 31st December 1977.

Mr. Bishop: The declaration by EEC Heads of Governments on 11th March 1975 established the framework for consideration of the question of imports of New Zealand cheese for the period after 1977, and I expect that this matter will now be considered by the Community in the autumn.

Mr. Winterton: Does the Minister agree that the delay in finalising this matter is not only causing grave uncertainty to the British dairy industry, which has invested more than £50 million in cheese manufacturing plants, but must put our very good friends in New Zealand in a state of uncertainty? Will he please give an assurance this afternoon that the question of whether we are to allow further cheese imports from New Zealand into this country will be finalised at a very early date—and I mean weeks, not months?

Mr. Bishop: We recognise the urgent need to deal with this matter, as indeed with other aspects concerned with the Community as a whole, but I stress that we should keep the matter in perspective. The New Zealand quota this year is only 15,240 tonnes. Last year we imported 70,000 tonnes of Cheddar-type cheese from other member States. Therefore, there is more cheese coming in from

the Community than from New Zealand. But, of course, New Zealand has a special place in this matter, following the Dublin Heads of Government agreement of a few years ago.

Mr. Molloy: Does my right hon. Friend agree that, although there is a great deal of substance in the complaints of Opposition Members regarding our membership of the EEC generally, many of the grunts and other farmyard noises that we have heard this afternoon are part of the frustration and anguish they are suffering because they rushed into membership so freely and quickly, without thinking?

Mr. Bishop: I recognise my hon. Friend's usual lucidity in these matters. My right hon. Friend is going to Australia and New Zealand during the recess. I have no doubt that he will bear in mind some of the points made and will have regard to the position of New Zealand. I think there is anxiety about our need to produce more cheese in this country. This can easily come about, in view of the substantial quantities that we import from the Community.

Mr. Marten: Does the Minister agree that the common agricultural policy, with all its protection, is damaging our agricultural trade with New Zealand and Australia? Will he further agree that the effect of this is to harm the lives of people in the Commonwealth, in Australia and New Zealand, which is something we do not want to do?

Mr. Bishop: I note the hon. Member's point. He will know of the loyal way the British Government have taken into account the special position of Australia and New Zealand. We shall continue to press upon the Community the special place that they have in our relationship and as potential suppliers of our needs.

Mr. Spearing: Since it is now an established fact that the retail price of butter from New Zealand would be only 51 per cent. of the normal EEC price if it were allowed free price range, will my right hon. Friend tell us the equivalent percentage for cheese?

Mr. Bishop: I shall write to my hon. Friend about that. The price that New Zealand gets for her products—butter, cheese or any other product—must be


comparable with the rest of the price levels within the Community.

PRICES (MINISTER'S SPEECH)

Mr. Tim Renton: asked the Prime Minister if the public speech on prices by the Secretary of State for Education and Science at the National Liberal Club on 9th July 1977 represents Government policy.

The Prime Minister (Mr. James Callaghan): In so far as my right hon. Friend's speech touched upon Government policy, the answer to the hon. Member's Question is "Yes".

Mr. Renton: How can it be the Prime Minister's policy both to support his right hon. Friend in her vigorous denunciation of the damage caused by constant critics of our EEC membership and, at the same time, to permit a quarter of his Government to vote against direct elections? When will he stop imitating Dr. Doolittle's push-me-pull-you, facing both ways at once? What steps will he take to remedy that damage, particularly in the light of the decisions taken yesterday by the Labour Party National Executive Committee?

The Prime Minister: The Government's policy on the European Community is quite clear, and I have nothing to add.

Mr. William Hamilton: Has my right hon. Friend seen the recent statement made by the retiring Chairman of the Price Commission, who indicated that if there is a responsible approach to wage demands and prices there is a reasonable prospect of getting inflation down to a 10 per cent. yearly average by the end of this year? In that context, will he also look at a report in the Scottish Daily Record this morning, showing that in some instances the price of beer has gone up by at least 30 per cent. in the past year? Unless we tackle that problem, we shall not get the response from the trade unions that we desire.

The Prime Minister: I believe that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection is looking into the matter of beer prices. Generally, it is the case that if there are moderate increases in earnings during the

next 12 months the country can look forward to a substantial reduction in the rate of inflation. Let me just list for the House some of the contributions to this end. In milk prices, railway fares, gas prices and postal charges there will be no increase before the end of 1977. In electricity charges and telephone charges there will be no increase before the spring of 1978. That, together with the reductions in income tax, which will find their way into the wage packet during the month of August—including a lump sum, in two instalments—provides a most favourable climate for wage bargainers during the next 12 months. I believe that against that background, and despite the jeers of the Opposition, trade union bargainers will want to ensure that inflation does not go rampant again.

SOCIAL CONTRACT

Mr. Pattie: asked the Prime Minister if, further to his statement,Official Report, 7th July, column 1423, that the social contract was no longer intact and his answer of 13th July to the hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit) that it was not broken, he will clarify the present status of the social contract.

The Prime Minister: Yes. [Interruption.] Yes. I thought that the hon. Member would be surprised. I refer him to the new statement that was announced yesterday, entitled "The Next Three Years and into the Eighties". This provides a renewed basis for co-operation between the Government and the Trades Union Congress.

Mr. Pattie: Why does the Prime Minister think that his new piece of paper, which has no TUC commitment other than a reluctant aquiescence to the 12-months' rule, will succeed when the old, now defunct, contract, which had genuine TUC commitments, produced record unemployment, stagnant productivity and a disastrous slump in overyone's standard of living?

The Prime Minister: I have answered that question many times in the House, and I am not able to get the hon. Gentleman to accept the answer. But, in addition to the factors that I gave in answer to the last Question, allow me to add that the fact that sterling—which I have


constantly described in this House as stable and which is now strong and moving upwards—is yet another favourable factor for wage negotiators. I would deny what the hon. Gentleman said about the trade union part of the contract being a failure last time, because there is no doubt, as I hope he will recall, that the £6 wage limit produced a very substantial decline in the rate of inflation during the first 12 months.

Mr. Heffer: Will my right hon. Friend explain to the Opposition that the social contract was begun in 1972, extended in 1973 and carried right through to today? Will he further explain that it was never mainly about wages and incomes policy —although it was partly about that, at one stage—that it has never been dead, and that part of it involves the introduction at the earliest moment of a wealth tax? Will he also explain that there should be an extension of planning agreements, and that if they are not accepted by industry there must be a statutory back-up to them? Will he make it clear that Opposition Members, instead of making noises, ought to study the social contract and not talk the nonsense that they have talked in the past about it?

The Prime Minister: I am asked for a comment upon opinion and therefore I will give it. It seems to me that the Opposition demonstrate day after day in this House their total incapacity to understand that unless they get on terms with organised labour in this country, instead of appearing constantly in opposition to it, as they do—unless they recognise that our industrial society demands that cooperation—they are never likely successfully to govern this country.

Mrs. Thatcher: Is the Prime Minister aware that one of the results of the social contract under Socialism is that the average family is now paying more, per week, in income tax and national insurance than it has left to spend on its food bills? When does he hope to reverse that situation?

The Prime Minister: The right hon. Lady continues to mislead the country about the necessity for a reduction in the national standard of life if we are to pay our way. When she starts to explain that, we may have less facile questions and explanations from her. I

ask the right hon. Lady whether she will join me in urging trade union negotiators to be moderate during the next 12 months and to keep the level of their earnings increases within 10 per cent.

Mrs. Thatcher: I shall gladly do that. Now will the Prime Minister answer my question?

The Prime Minister: I have answered the question. I shall answer the right hon. Lady's question again, although she knows the answer perfectly well. It is that this country, because of the increase in oil prices by four to five times, required a reduction in its standard of life. I have never evaded making clear that the Government took measures deliberately to achieve that. I hope that the Opposition, one day, will have a similar sense of responsibility. Now, I am glad to say, the period of the worst reduction is over and we can look forward to an improvement in our standard of life. I hope that the right hon. Lady, in her support for me—for which I thank her—on this matter of an increase in earnings, will include all groups, no matter who they may be.

Mrs. Thatcher: With great respect, I do not think that the Prime Minister can have heard or understood my question. The question was: is he aware that under the social contract the average family is now paying more, per week, in tax and national insurance contributions than it has left to spend on food? Has he any plans to reverse that situation, which would mean having tax incentives to get the growth that the next stage of the social contract demands?

The Prime Minister: Very well. I shall try to give the right hon. Lady even more information than I have given her so far—[Interruption.]—if the animal noises coming from the Opposition will stop for a moment.
First, as a result of the Budget, a man with average earnings of about £80 per week, with an average family of two children, will receive in child benefit and tax relief an extra £2·19 in his wage packet. That is the first contribution. The second is that, because of the increases in allowances, the same average family will receive, in the wage packet during August, nearly £20 as a lump sum. That, too, is a contribution. I hope that the


hon. Lady can understand these figures and I also hope that, unpleasant though they may be to the Opposition, who can never stand good news of any sort about the pay packet, at least they will join me when I say that I hope that when this back tax of £20 is returned in the pay packet this year people will buy British goods with the money.

Mr. Bryan Davies: Will my right hon. Friend take this opportunity of further educating the Opposition? Since a major priority at the present time must be to reduce the appalling level of unemployment, will he point out to the Leader of the Opposition and to the country just how the policies of Adam Smith and free market capitalism affect unemployment rates in countries such as the United States of America?

The Prime Minister: I despair of educating either the right hon. Lady or the Opposition. I have spent the past 12 months trying to do it, with singularly little success.

Mr. Tebbit: In the process of education, would the Prime Minister like to tell his hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, North (Mr. Davies) that Britain was the star of the Common Market last month, contributing almost the whole total of the increase in unemployment throughout the whole Community? Would he like to make a note to himself, to keep by him, that since the October election the real net take-home pay of the average industrial worker, about whom the Prime Minister was talking, has fallen by more than £8 a week? Is that not a pretty fair subscription to pay for joining the social contract?

The Prime Minister: I have always regarded the hon. Gentleman as one of my least promising pupils, but during the recess I shall be very happy to conduct a seminar with him and any other of his hon. Friends that he cares to bring along.

PRIME MINISTER (ENGAGEMENTS)

Mr. Hannam: Q3. Mr. Hannam asked the Prime Minister what his engagements are for Thursday 28th July.

The Prime Minister: This morning I presided at a meeting of the Cabinet. In

addition to my duties in this House, I shall be holding further meetings with ministerial colleagues and others.

Mr. Hannam: Will the Prime Minister take an opportunity today to explain to the British people why, at a time of record unemployment, inflation, industrial stagnation and the imminence of a wages explosion, he has thought it proper to allow Parliament to go into recess for the longest period since the 1950s? Is it because he is becoming unable to bear the heat of the kitchen?

The Prime Minister: There is no prospect of ever satisfying the Opposition on any of these matters. Last year the complaint was that we were adjourning for too short a period. This year the complaint is that we are adjourning for too long a period. The plain truth is that Tory Members must try to find something on which to question me and, so far, they are not being very successful.

QUESTIONS TO THE PRIME MINISTER

Mr. Michael Latham: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, of which I gave you notice. Last Tuesday you were courteous enough to undertake to think about giving the House guidance on the conduct of Prime Minister's Questions and said, as reported at column 307:
I undertake to spend my recess considering what has been said."—[Official Report, 26th July 1977; Vol. 936, c. 307.]
May I respectfully suggest one other matter on which you might give guidance, which is the practice of the Prime Minister in transferring Questions? The Prime Minister has said that he has been transferring very few Questions since the new system came into operation. I respectfully draw to your attention Question No. Q7, which the Prime Minister did not transfer today, by my hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) on
the progress made in implementing the measures foreshadowed in the Gracious speech",
and Question No. 031, by myself, now to the Lord President of the Council, but previously to the Prime Minister and transferred by him. My Question talks of implementing two particular sections of the Queen's Speech.
I hope that in your consideration you will bear in mind that it now appears to be the rule that if one asks a general Question, but not too general, the Prime Minister undertakes to keep it, but if one asks a more detailed Question which deals with specific examples of Government policy for which he has overall control, it is transferred. If I may say so, it is a very discouraging procedure.

Mr. Speaker: The transfer of Questions is a matter for the Minister concerned—in this case the Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister (Mr. James Callaghan): I have tried to help the House in this matter. I think that the hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit), who has a complete list of the Questions that I have transferred, would acknowledge, if he were to rise on a point of order, that I have transferred very few Questions indeed. I must stick to the rule that if the Question is a general one which overlaps the responsibility of all the Government, I will answer it, but if it refers to a particular departmental matter and, therefore, a section of the Government's policy, I pass it to the appropriate Minister. It is not right that I should be a catch-all for all Ministers. Ministers should answer their own Questions. That is the procedure that I have tried to adopt in an attempt to help the House—I really have tried —and it is the procedure that I must pursue. I hope that I shall have a little understanding for this, and not continual niggling about it.

Mr. Tebbit: Perhaps I might respond to what the Prime Minister has said. It is true that the Prime Minister was kind

enough to send me a list, which is very helpful in trying to understand the rules that he uses.
Further to what the Prime Minister has just said, I draw his attention, and yours, Mr. Speaker, to a Question that was put down for answer on 12th July by the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. Wilson). The hon. Gentleman asked the Prime Minister
when he will next meet the Scottish Council (Development and Industry) and the STUC to discuss employment prospects in Scotland." —[Official Report, 12th July 1977; Vol. 935, c. 64.]
That would appear to be a specific matter that is the concern of another Minister. Therefore, to judge from what the Prime Minister has just said, one would have expected him to transfer it, but he did not. He kept it.

The Prime Minister: There are no rules about this. [Laughter.] If that is the kind of attitude that is being adopted, why should I try? No rules are laid down for this matter. I therefore have to use my discretion, and with my assistants I go through every Question carefully to try to find some common denominator that would permit me to answer it. or whether, if I did answer it, I would open the door to a great many other Questions. I think that if the hon. Member for Chingford will publish the list about which I wrote to him the House will see that I have tried to deal with the matter very fairly. A margin of discretion must be left to the Prime Minister as to what he answers and what he transfers, and, with respect, I must insist on that.

FOOTWEAR INDUSTRY

The Minister of State, Department of Industry (Mr. Alan Williams): With permission, I should like to make a statement on the Footwear Industry Study Steering Group's report. The Group, which included four Members of this House, has produced a comprehensive and most valuable report on the footwear industry. I intend to respond to it positively. There are 55 recommendations for action in the report. Some 23 are directed to Government. Action has already begun on a number of important recommendations.
The Government have examined the report with great care. I am conscious of the need to avoid creating uneconomic capacity in the industry or exacerbating the existing over-capacity in Europe as a whole. The Government are, nevertheless, anxious to give as quickly as possible whatever help they can to the industry consistent with our international obligations, including those within the Community, and with the constraints on public expenditure.
We shall be exploring with the industry the exact ways in which Government financial assistance could be provided to meet the essential purposes behind the recommendations in the report.
I am glad to announce that, in line with the report's recommendation for a successor body to the Steering Group, a new footwear committee will be established, on a tripartite basis, under the National Economic Development Council. Distributors as well as manufacturers will be represented on it.
There are a number of recommendations on training. These will need further consultation between the Industry Training Board and the industry, but I do not expect there to be any insuperable difficulties in providing the necessary finance.
As regards direct assistance to individual exporters, officials of the Departments concerned are arranging to discuss the detailed recommendation in the report with the industry. The aim will be to explore ways and means of using the services of ECGD and the British Overseas Trade Board to the best advantage of footwear exporters.
A number of the recommendations on trade policy already form part of Government policy. My Department and the Department of Trade will be meeting with the industry to consider the scope for giving effect to the substance of others. In this connection, I recognise the industry's concern about the increasing inroads which imports are making into the home market and we are considering with the Department of Trade what scope there might be for remedial action.
The report refers to gross margins in footwear retailing but makes no recommendation concerning them. However, I have drawn the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection to what the report has to say on this matter.
We accept the importance of continuing zero VAT rating of footwear designed for young children and for certain industrial safety footwear, and, as requested, we are looking into the possibility of Government action in relation to the social cost of foot deformities.
As to the recommendation for an investigation of footwear distribution, the Director-General of Fair Trading intends to keep developments in the industry under review, although he has decided that there is at present no monopoly situation.
I know that the industry accepts that Government action alone will not make the industry viable. It is also vital that the industry accepts and implements the recommendations directed to itself in this valuable report.
The footwear manufacturing industry is an important employer and contributes a great deal to the national economy. I am confident that it can have a prosperous future. The Government will do all they can to foster this.

Mr. Norman Lamont: May we be associated with the Minister's statement congratulating the Steering Grout) and the Members of the House involved in producing this massive and detailed analysis of the industry's problems?
Is the Minister aware that we recognise the special problems caused to the industry by unfair competition, export subsidies and import restrictions? Can he say whether the Government accept the specific finding of the committee that


quotas from COMECON countries are too high and that there is no reason why certain countries, such as Japan, should be allowed to continue to maintain quotas?
Is the Minister aware that we note from the report that the technology of the industry is up to date and industrial relations are good, and therefore action has to come from the industry itself to improve its position in world markets, and that we agree with the Minister that this is more important than Government expenditure?
Lastly, is the Minister aware that the recommendations for Government grants to supplement the salaries of managers, marketing executives and entrepreneurs—which may strike some hon. Members as a rather curious recommendation—underline in a particular case what the Government have always denied in general—that management salaries in this country have been squeezed unduly and that it is in the national interest and in the interests of employment and competitive industry that action should be taken urgently to reverse this trend?

Mr. Williams: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his congratulations to the people who produced the report. I am sure that the whole House will echo his words.
On the point raised about the COMECON countries, we have accepted the first part of the recommendation in the report, that any liberalisation of quotas would have to be done slowly. We have also told the industry that we think it highly improbable that it would be possible to negotiate lower voluntary import levels than apply at the moment. I share the hon. Gentleman's view of the favourable industrial relations within the industry. It is a good omen if management itself now provides adequate initiative to work on the report's recommendations.
The point raised by the hon. Gentleman about Government grants for salaries and so on introduces a somewhat novel suggestion, as I am sure he will appreciate. It is one of the reasons for our having to discuss with the industry precisely what form financial support should take, and whether it can take the exact form that is suggested. As for the general political point that the hon. Gentleman

made at the end of his comments, I am sure that he will appreciate that in this industry the situation described in the report is a long-standing one.

Mr. John Garrett: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the rapid response of his Department to this important report will he welcomed throughout the footwear industry? Can he inform the House on two further items in the report? First, when will the first sums of money under the £11 million proposed become available, particularly for investment? Second, what progress has my right hon. Friend made with signing a planning agreement with the leading distributing companies. particularly the British Shoe Corporation? He will be aware, of course, that Conservative Members as well as Labour Members of Parliament, manufacturers and trade unionists recommend that a planning agreement be signed with leading companies in the footwear retail trade.

Mr. Williams: I thank my hon. Friend for his kind comments and, in turn, I congratulate him and other hon. Members who gave a considerable amount of time to assisting in the preparation of the report. One of the reasons that we want to have further discussion with the industry on the question of finance is that, clearly, if the finance is to be available we want it to be available as quickly as is practicable. This means that it would be helpful if, instead of trying to provide all the finance under a completely new scheme, which would take time to prepare and process, as my hon. Friend will appreciate from his discussions in the Steering Group, we could identify some sources of finance that are already in existence. That is what we intend to do in our discussion.
In respect of the planning agreement, I hope to give my hon. Friend partial comfort by saying that planning discussions, which are the precursor to possible planning agreements, are already under way with about six companies. Some of these companies are on the manufacturing side and some on the distribution side.

Mr. Boscawen: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that this report will do a lot of good in getting the size and standing of this considerable industry recognised throughout the country? Will he accept


from me that the industry generally will welcome the fact that he has announced that a successor body will be set up? Can he say how soon that is likely to be? Further, will the Minister take note that the industry's greatest problem still is the level of imports from countries where wages are considerably lower than they are in this country? Though they may not be subsidised imports, they do grave damage in that shoes are coming to this country below the cost of the raw materials that are in them.

Mr. Williams: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his constructive comments. I agree with him completely about the standing of the industry. I was intrigued by a comment made by my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale (Mr. Noble) on a recent deputation that the industry is a bigger employer than the shipbuilding industry. That is something which people tend not to appreciate initially.
The successor body has already been authorised. It was authorised at the last NEDC meeting. It is now a matter of making the appropriate appointments to the body. We hope that the tripartite committee will be in operation as quickly as possible, because we want its advice on the implementation of the recommendations in the report—implementation not just by Government but by industry, too.
When the level of imports reaches the 52 per cent. level that it has attained this year, it must be a matter of grave concern. While discussions are taking place in the multilateral trade negotiations about the longer-term issues, we are considering whether Article XIX action may be appropriate, because we have received an application from the industry to use that section.

Mr. Noble: Will my right hon. Friend accept that the people who work in the industry in Rossendale will be pleased to hear of the Government's commitment to the report and the steps that will be taken to implement it? Will he also accept that there is a short-term problem and a long-term problem? He referred to the short-term problem a moment ago —the question of imports. Will he acknowledge that people in the industry are urgently requesting action on this matter? Article XIX should be used if imports

reach the level of 52 per cent. and there is evidence of market disruption. That will be quite clear if my right hon. Friend examines the number of workers on TES and the number of redundancies.
Will my right hon. Friend also note that in the long term it will be absolutely essential for the industry to be refurbished, particularly in relation to design and marketing? Will he say more in that respect, particularly on the subject of exports?

Mr. Williams: I hope that my hon. Friend is correct when he says that the response will be welcomed in Rossendale. I want the people of Rossendale to know that I am indebted to the rather unusual localised union which exists there and which came to give some advice during the past few weeks when we have been consulting about our response to this report.
As my hon. Friend implies, while the long-term problems are clearly important, if the short-term problems are not dealt with there may not be a long term. That is what worries many hon. Members. That is why we are having the most urgent consideration with the Department of Trade about an Article XIX operation.
I remind the House that substantial action has already been taken to curb imports from certain sources. But I recognise and understand the concern that exists in the industry at this stage. We in the Government are treating it as a matter of urgency.
My hon. Friend asked about the question of design. This is a critically important sector of the industry. It is where the industry has fallen down and it is the reason why we have lost so much trade, for example to the Italian shoe industry. One of the matters which we have to explore—I have already had initial consultations on the matter—is precisely what form boosting the design side of the industry should take. There is no lack of will to do it. It is a matter of finding the most effective way of attaining that objective.
On marketing, as I indicated in my initial comments, we are considering to what extent, under ECGD, further support can be given.

Miss Harvie Anderson: On the employment point, will the Minister undertake


to watch one of the main supplying units, namely, the leather suppliers? If the Government are to intervene through the National Enterprise Board, will the Minister assure the House that that intervention will not help one area in terms of employment at the expense of another which will lose jobs in consequence?

Mr. Williams: At the moment I think there is no question of a shortage of leather supplies, as the right hon. Lady will appreciate. I accept that no one wants to add to the difficulties, but, frankly, I do not think that the NEB's activities so far in that direction have done so. Nor have my own attempts to save the tannery in the Millom area.

Mr. Greville Janner: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the satisfaction which his statement will bring to areas such as Leicester which have always depended greatly upon the footwear trade and where there is, for example, the largest shoe warehouse in the world? Will he also bear in mind, when consulting the new committee, the needs of individual areas where unemployment has been caused through the recession in the industry? Can he assure the House that both in the composition of the new committee and in its consultations careful attention will be given to the special needs of areas so dependent upon the industry?

Mr. Williams: I am appreciative of my hon. and learned Friend's approach, but I am not at all sure that a geographic representation is necessarily the ideal basis for forming this committee. But I shall look at the point, because it was raised previously by my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Rossendale.
I think it equally important that we ensure that all relevant sectors of the industry are adequately represented, and particularly that the distribution side, which was not represented on the previous committee, is represented on this committee. I am sure that, in the long term, there can be no sensible solution to the industry's problems unless we have the distribution side working constructively with the manufacturing side.

Mr. Michael Morris: Will the Minister recognise how much we welcome, first, the creation of the little "Neddy" and, second, the general acceptance of the

recommendations, but that this is tempered by disappointment that no financial budget has been given to the industry and there was the vague phrase in the Minister's statement.
consistent with the constraints on public expenditure"?
Although the Article XIX order has now been with the Department for just over two months, there has been no positive response yet. Lastly, the right hon. Gentleman's statement about the BOTB rings a little hollow when the industry is facing a 25 per cent. cutback in resources from that area in the current financial year.

Mr. Williams: I thank the hon. Gentleman at least for his first sentence. I am sorry that I cannot extend the same response to the rest of his comments. He said that he was disappointed that there was no financial budget. If it had been possible to provide a financial budget at this stage, I should have wished to do so. The type of problem that the hon. Member for Kingston upon Thames (Mr. Lamont) indicated in his response demonstrates the difficulties that we are having in finding the appropriate form of financial response to the report. Frankly, I should not have made the statement to the House today had we not been about to go into recess. But, although it will take me a little longer to finalise the financial package, I thought it essential to people in the industry, because of the dangers to morale there, that they should know clearly today, before we go into recess, that the Government and both sides of the House are firmly behind them in their attempt to save the industry.

Mr. George: Is the Minister aware that Walsall is one of the few remaining centres of the leather goods industry, an industry closely connected with the footwear industry and having identical problems, not the least being competition from the Far East, notably Taiwan? When he is devising a policy to resuscitate the footwear industry, will he consider that closely related industry which he might assist and thereby help to resuscitate not just one industry but two?

Mr. Williams: I congratulate my hon. Friend on his ingenuity. Certainly, if appropriate information is submitted to me, such as I have had from the shoe industry, I shall be glad to respond as


quickly as I possibly can. In saying that, may I add a point that I forgot earlier? The application from the industry has not been with the Government for two months. My recollection is that it came at about the middle of June.

Mr. Farr: I recognise the reasons why the Minister made the statement today. Indeed, I welcome the establishment of a new footwear committee, although it is difficult to see how that will provide any extra jobs. But will the Minister again address himself to the question of taking some action under Article XIX relating to cheap imports, particularly from the Far East, including South Korea, and also from certain Iron Curtain countries, which are undoubtedly causing great damage to the home trade?

Mr. Williams: The committee is intended in itself not to create extra jobs but to act as a focal point for discussion of the industry's problems and also as a central committee to ensure that the implementation of the report is carried through as effectively and quickly as possible. As I have indicated, we are treating the Article XIX response urgently. I do not think that I can add anything to my previous comments there. As regards the COMECON countries, I am sure that the hon. Member is aware that rubber footwear from Eastern Europe is already covered by quotas, that all footwear from China is covered by quotas, we have negotiated voluntary restraint with Poland, Czechoslovakia and Romania on leather footwear and we have recently managed to get price adjustments on footwear from Czechoslovakia and Poland as a result of an anti-dumping proposition put to us by the industry. We have achieved some positive results there. I can understand, however, that, with high levels of imports, people will want to see Article XIX action.

Mr. William Ross: My right hon. Friend will appreciate that we are heartened by the Government's recognition of the importance of the industry and its problems. He will be aware that Kilmarnock, which is more or less the centre of the industry in Scotland, is already hard hit, and we were more than slightly troubled to hear what he said about the geographic area outlook. If my right hon.

Friend can give us an assurance that the Government will not ignore the importance of these proposals to areas that are already hard hit, we shall be satisfied, because we know that he usually means what he says.
There is another matter that worries me. My right hon. Friend mentioned Italian competition. This is something that concerns many hon. Members. To what extent is he inhibited by our membership of the Common Market in taking action?

Mr. Williams: If I may deal first with the latter point, the important thing about competition within the Market, and from other advanced economies, is that it should be on a fair basis. Within the EEC, there are control mechanisms to ensure that that is so. One has to recognise that the Italians' supremacy on the Continent in this respect has arisen substantially from their greater investment in design—there have been some very interesting experiments in design operation—and also because of their much higher capital investment, which is one of the objectives of the report that we are now considering.
On the geographic point, I can give my right hon. Friend the assurance that he wants. I am not suggesting that we ignore it completely. We are dealing with quite a large and dispersed industry, with many large and medium-sized firms. We shall want to take account of major geographic factors, but we must ensure that that does not prevent us from having the proper spread of know-how and ability, while keeping the committee to a size that is operational.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton: I join the Minister and my hon. Friends in welcoming the report and expressing thanks to those who produced it.
Is the Minister aware that while this great and important industry faces tremendous competition from within Europe —and also from those countries that might well join Europe in the foreseeable future —a high degree of the unfair competition comes from the COMECON countries?
In reply to an earlier question the Minister said that he did not believe that it was possible to reduce existing voluntary quotas with certain countries


in Eastern Europe. Will he say why he is not prepared to try to reduce the quotas that have put this important industry in Britain in a parlous and unfortunate position? I believe that one way of solving the problem is to negotiate rather more realistic quotas with those Eastern European countries that are undermining the industry at present.

Mr. Williams: I think that the same general proposition must apply. Where there is fair competition, industry must be able to stand up against it. Where we have had evidence of possible dumping by the COMECON countries, we have taken action. The recent response of the Department of Trade vis-à-vis Czechoslovakia demonstrates the effectiveness of that, I believe that it has already had repercussions in ordering patterns.
The hon. Gentleman may be aware that the original voluntary quotas were arrived at after hard negotiations with the State trading nations. The Department of Trade has had lengthy negotiations, and these negotiations inevitably go beyond any one industry when we are dealing with State-trading nations. Therefore, one has to take into account a trading package.

Mr. Tomney: In this welter of questions, important as they are in relation to trade and industry and imports and exports in the shoe industry, may I ask one important question on behalf of the general public? It refers to my right hon. Friend's statement about style and design.
My right hon. Friend will be aware—perhaps he is not aware—that as women get older they get broader in the bottom and broader in the feet. As a consequence, there is a dearth of wider fittings with style and comfort for elderly and middle-aged women. This is a grievous problem for the public. Women can go from shop to shop, hour after hour, seeking shoes to fit them. The market is geared to the young people, with a fast turnover and high profits. There is a problem here—special fittings for special people—which should be met by the industry.

Mr. Williams: I am sure that my hon. Friend is absolutely correct. One of the ways in which some of the exporting countries have managed to erode the domestic market is by selling only a limited range of fittings so that they do not have the same costs in production that our own producers have. This is essentially a question for the Department of Prices and Consumer Protection. I shall ensure that it is brought to the attention of my right hon. Friend and, indeed, of the industry.

SITTINGS OF THE HOUSE

Ordered,
That, at to-morrow's sitting, Mr. Speaker shall not adjourn the House until he shall have reported the Royal Assent to the Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) Bill, but, that, subject to this condition, Mr. Speaker shall at half-past Four o'clock, or as soon thereafter as he shall have so reported, adjourn the House without putting any Question.—[Mr. Foot.]

ADJOURNMENT (SUMMER)

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That this House at its rising tomorrow do adjourn till Wednesday 26th October.—[Mr. Foot.]

4.1 p.m.

Mr. William Hamilton: Invariably, at this time of the year, there is a good deal of unfinished business for the House, and hon. Members have their own favourite topics with which to fill in the three months between now and October, when we return. The poor Early-Day Motions on the Order Paper—seldom debated, seldom influential and of varying degrees of importance—all fall by the wayside. There are some quite important Early-Day Motions on the Order Paper. I refer, for example, to the motion in the name of some of my hon. Friends on Japanese television imports and the serious threat that they entail to thousands of jobs up and down the United Kingdom. There will be a debate on the Consolidated Fund later in the evening on that very point, and therefore I shall not go into it now.
There are also two very important motions on the dismissal of judges, in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Lambeth, Central (Mr. Lipton), which I think deserve the time of the House. One thinks of one judge in particular. We know about the celebrated case of rape and the judgment thereon which caused enormous distress up and down the country. I think that it is singularly unfortunate that we never had a chance to debate that matter.
It is interesting that there are several Early-Day Motions, in the names principally of hon. Gentleman opposite, calling for very substantial increases in public expenditure, whether on the police, on pig farmers or on chemists. All of them are designed to fly in the face of the official policy of the Tory Party, which is to slash public expenditure. At one and the same time, hon. Gentlemen opposite are putting motion after motion on the Order Paper asking for increases here, there and everywhere.
The silliest Early-Day Motion is No. 464, in the name of the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell), who is not here. I shall read it out:

That this House expresses the hope that Officers of Her Majesty's Household will invariably wear the customary dress when delivering Her Majesty's Gracious Messages to the House.
The present Vice-Chamberlain—I have given him notice of my intention to refer to him—my hon. Friend the Member for Bothwell (Mr. Hamilton), is a disgraceful sloven in these matters. As a Scottish Member of Parliament, he ought to know better. He has a morning coat and a beautiful pair of pin-striped trousers—I have seen him in them—and I do not see why he should slum it by coming here, bearing the glad tidings from Her Majesty, clad in a suit straight from St. Michael's wardrobe. Mentioning St. Michael, I hope that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, that well-known stickler for sartorial elegance, will attend to this vital matter.

Mr. Max Madden: This is a most interesting point. Is my hon. Friend aware that the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) attracted some comment in this House last Friday by departing from his usual dark dress and was seen to wear a brown suit?

Mr. Hamilton: I think that that was ominous, and I shall refer to that incident later in my speech. I hope that my right hon. Friend will attend to this vital matter and satisfy the sensitivity of the right hon. Member who put down the motion. Coming to more serious matters—

Mr. Arthur Lewis,: rose—

Mr. Hamilton: I would rather not give way. Between now and our return in late October—this is one of the most serious points in my speech—there will be many thousands of workers engaged in wage negotiations. I shall go through a few of them. In August, in the public sector, there will be about 5,000 to 6,000 BBC weekly paid staff engaged in negotiations and 26,000 British Steel Corporation staff, and in the private sector well over 100,000 in five other different industries. In September there will be a very important test case, namely, the police, involving about 116,000; also there will be the dockers, and in the private sector there will be nearly 200,000 workers—from brewery workers to the timber trade. In October, in the public sector there will


be white-collar workers in the BBC, the universities and the Atomic Energy Authority, totalling very nearly 100,000, and in the private sector—Ford, Metal Box Company and the rest—another 200,000. Many of these negotiations will be extremely difficult for the trade unions, the employers and the Government.
I referred during Prime Minister's Questions this afternoon to the fact that the retiring Chairman of the Price Commission, Sir Arthur Cockfield, has recently given a very optimistic forecast on the battle against inflation. There is now, he said,
a real opportunity of achieving a substantial and continuing reduction in the rate of inflation
provided that there is reasonable and responsible behaviour in pay settlements and on prices. I made specific reference to a typical example of that, which is reported in the Scottish Daily Record today. It stated that there were enormous increases in the prices of beer and lager—which are mostly water with a bit of gas pumped into them. Those prices have in the past year increased by up to 30 per cent. Unless the Government show a great determination to get at this problem, we cannot expect the kind of response that we hope we shall get from trade unionists.
The retiring Chairman of the Price Commission went on to say:
The prize which is there for the taking is one which ought not lightly to be thrown away".
If all goes well, the annual rate of inflation could be down to 10 per cent. by the end of this year. This seems to me, and, I think, to the Government, to be a glittering prize to be won in the teeth of opposition front the Tory Benches to all the policies that have brought it within our grasp.
Within the past week or two, Tory Members and the Press have been in high glee about the speech made in the House by the Leader of the Opposition in the last censure debate. They were desperately in need of some morale booster, and, God knows, up to now the right hon. Lady has done little to deserve anything for that. She had had all the inspiration up to then of a St. Trinian's prefect. But that speech contained not

one positive suggestion of alternative policies on inflation or anything else. A month of the recess could well be spent here going through with a fine-toothed comb the precise policies of the Tory Party in the face of our present problems—inflation, price control, public expenditure, social services, devolution and the rest. Having said that, I want to turn to events of the past few days in this House. Prior to the debate last Tuesday a report appeared in—I think—The Observer, written by Mr. Adam Raphael entitled
Reforming the best club in London".
That article expressed reservations, which had been expressed last Tuesday, about the unsatisfactory mechanism of the Select Committee procedure in dealing with matters of alleged misconduct by hon. Members of this House. It said:
It seems probable, however, that at the end of next week's debate
—it referred to the debate which took place last Tuesday—
the Commons will endorse the Select Committee's judgment".
It went on:
What then?
Mr. Raphael gave a partial answer which, I think, is extremely relevant. He said:
the public will not be much impressed if all three MPs continue to serve as if nothing had happened… anyone in professional life who was criticised in this manner would either be sacked or be expected to resign immediately.
Mr. Raphael's last point deserves the attention of this House at the earliest possible moment and there should be, between now and the recess, a debate and action taken on the report of the Salmon Commission on Standards of Conduct in Public Life. That Commission made a recommendation that Parliament should consider removing the immunity preventing Members of Parliament from being prosecuted for offences in respect of their parliamentary duties. That immunity should be shelved. There is no case at all for that kind of immunity.
If I may make a final quotation from that article, it said:
The Commons may still be the best club in London, but anachronistic privileges of this kind do nothing to help a legislature desperately trying to reform itself.


I have only one caveat to that statement. I do not believe that it is other than a gross over-statement to say that we are desperately trying to reform ourselves. It is on a par with the Government using their best endeavours to get the Bill implementing direct elections to the European Parliament through by the middle of next year.
There is a related point to this article that deserves urgent debate. I refer to Early-Day Motion No. 465 which expresses no confidence in the Father of the House. That is the most contemptible act I have seen in many years in this House. My right hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss) has been continuously in this House since 1929. Why is he condemned in that motion? He exercised what is the inalienable right of every hon. Member of this House to express his opinions in a courteous, reasonable manner.
My right hon. Friend made a much more moderate speech than those made by Winston Churchill and by Quinton Hogg—the names of those hon. Gentlemen at that time, namely, 30th October 1947—when they were baying for the blood of a Labour Member, the then hon. Member for Gravesend. They bayed for it and they got it. There was a similar motion tabled, couched in almost identical terms to my right hon. Friend's motion, namely, that there should be a six months' suspension of the hon. Member who had infringed the code of conduct of this House. But they were not satisfied with that. Mr. Hogg and Mr. Churchill achieved the expulsion of the then Labour Member for Gravesend. My right hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall, in his speech, used these words:
We must not refrain from action because of the old school tie, or for any other reason."—[Official Report, 26th July 1977; Vol. 936, c. 367.]
The response of hon. Gentlemen to that was typical. That very night they tabled their Early-Day Motion. Who were the sponsors of the motion? The hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Sir T. Kitson). Where was he educated? Charterhouse. The second sponsor was the hon. Member for Richmond, Surrey (Sir A. Royle), who was educated at Harrow and was in the Life Guards. The third sponsor was the hon. Member for

Harrow, Central (Mr. Grant), who was educated at St. Paul's School and was in the 3rd Dragoon Guards. The fourth sponsor was the hon. Member for Hertfordshire, South (Mr. Parkinson), who was educated at the Royal Grammar School, Lancaster. The fifth sponsor was the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Kimball), who was educated at Eton. The sixth was the hon. Member for Hampstead (Mr. Finsberg), educated at the City of London School.
That was the old school network to which my right hon. Friend referred. They chose, within hours of my right hon. Friend making those remarks in last Tuesday's debate, to put in the public school boot. That is typical of the behaviour of the whole Tory Party in these past 14 days. I have always thought that it was a grubby, greedy, unscrupulous and ruthless party, and it was seen at its grubbiest, most unscrupulous and most ruthless when the Select Committee reported a fortnight ago.
The party, therefore, took a quick decision to ditch Mr. Cordle the better to save their right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Mr. Maudling). The despatch was swift and merciless, accompanied by inevitable crocodile tears so correctly described by the brown-suited right hon. Member for Down, South as cant and humbug. Mr. Cordle's demise was achieved with all the speed and skill of the accomplished assassin.
That was the inevitable step to take prior to the decision to rally round Reggie. Everything had to be sacrified to that, and if they had dared, they would even have sacrified my hon. Friend the Member for Normanton (Mr. Roberts) in that process. It was clear from the speech made in that debate by the right hon. Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Pym) that he would have liked to ditch the hon. Member for Normanton, had it not been too blatantly obvious.
But, worse than that, there were two Conservative Members who took part in the proceedings of that Select Committee, and presumably accepted the unanimous report, who proceeded to vote against the motion that the House of Commons should agree with the report. Who were they? The hon. Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Blaker)—yes, he went to Shrewsbury School—and the


hon. and learned Member for Royal Tunbridge Wells (Mr. Mayhew), who went to Tonbridge public school and was further educated in the Royal Dragoon Guards.

Mr. Stephen Hastings: Mr. Stephen Hastings (Mid-Bedfordshire) rose—

Mr. Hamilton: No, I will not give way. The hon. Gentleman—

Mr. Hastings: Mr. Hastings rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Oscar Murton): Order. If the hon. Member for Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton), who has the Floor, does not desire to give way, he cannot be pressed to do so.

Mr. Hamilton: I am trying to curtail my remarks and to temper them with my known moderation in these matters.
It must be put on record that last Tuesday the Tory Party plumbed the depths of political squalor. The atmosphere stank of unprincipled intrigue and conspiracy. Those who think that they were saved by this organised cant should understand that the Select Committee's unanimous report still remains. Its awesome message is there for all to read. We shall deride or ignore it at our peril. For Tory Party, last Tuesday was its greatest moment of disgrace for a generation. Things can never be the same again. The sooner our Government get down to the creation of a more meaningful and effective compulsory Members' Register of all outside financial interests and we see that it is enforced, if necessary by the force of law, the better. We cannot exist any longer with the kind of squalor related in that Select Committee Report.

4.21 p.m.

Mr. J. Grimond: I do not intend to comment on the sartorial taste of the hon. Member for Bothwell (Mr. Hamilton). I have always regarded him as a decent and sober dresser and an excellent carrier of messages.
I do not think that it would be wise to re-open the debate that we had last Tuesday, but in regard to the latter part of the speech of the hon. Member for Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton), I would go as far as this in agreeing with him. It may be that the House of Commons should have

a debate about outside interests in general.
This is a highly confused and delicate subject. I would only make one or two comments about it. First, I think that it would be undesirable if all politicians became whole-time Members. However, if one wants that to happen, one must pay them considerably more than they are paid now. Secondly, we must remember that the customs of the House have changed over the years.
I well remember introducing a Private Member's Bill, many years ago, on a rather small matter, but an important one, concerning the financing of pier building in Scotland. To my astonishment, an hon. Member for a South of England constituency, who had never shown any interest in the subject before, came and made a rather long speech on it. On inquiring why that had happened, I found that at that time he was paid by the bookmakers to represent their interests in Parliament. He had turned up to ensure that there was insufficient time to get through a later Private Member's Bill that might have adversely affected the interests of the bookmakers. I do not know whether people now think it proper that Members should be paid by bodies of that sort to represent them in Parliament. I think that that is one issue that is at least open to discussion. So far as I remember, the hon. Member to whom I referred made no avowal of interest whatever, yet had he not been in the pay of the bookmakers, to some extent at any rate, he certainly would not have turned up on a Friday to talk on an entirely different Bill.
I think that there are areas that need examination, but I do not know that I would go so far as to say that we should be made subject to the ordinary procedure of the courts. However, this is certainly worthy of discussion. It may be that, now that local authorities are under stringent rules as to corruption, we shall have to look at the situation in this House.
I sympathise very much with what the Leader of the House said in the debate on Tuesday—that the House of Commons is not at its best when being sanctimonious. A good deal of hypocrisy has been talked about the whole subject, but


I think that this is a matter that could be reviewed. All I say is that at the time when the three Members were accused of a breach of the rules of the House it was the official view, as I understand it, from Mr. Speaker, that a Member had to declare an interest only in connection with a vote. I think that it is unfair for any tribunal to apply to those offences different standards that have come into operation since the alleged offences took place.
I have grave reservations about the whole procedure by which we investigate these matters, and so have many other Members. I doubt whether Select Committees are a good method. I think that if we look back we cannot be proud of the result of the Lynskey Tribunal or of certain Select Committees that have been referred to by the hon. Member. I should like to see some new method, if, indeed it is necessary, of examining these matters.
I conclude by saying that I do not think that we should re-open the whole question that was debated on Tuesday. I do not feel altogether proud when I look back upon some of the things for which I voted in this House. I see that I was one of the signatories of the motion referred to by the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Mr. Maudling), though I would not sign such a motion now. I do not think that any of us can stand in a white sheet about this, but if the Leader of the House can find time next Session, it might well be a subject worth discussing.

Mr. Ronald Bell: I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that we ought not to go back to this subject and I hope that what he said will be the end of it. Therefore, I intervene at this point, with his kind consent, to say that any idea of organisation or collaboration is nonsense. I put down those amendments—which were the amendments on which we voted—without asking anybody or telling anybody. Whatever support they attracted was entirely spontaneous and totally unorganised by me or, so far as I know, by anybody else.

Mr. Grimond: I pass, then, to another matter touched upon by the hon. Member for Fife, Central—that is, what may happen in the autumn of this year. Here I wish to draw the attention of the

Government to a difficulty that may arise in my own constituency. We are particularly vulnerable in the autumn when we try to move large quantities of lambs and cattle. We have become more vulnerable owing to oil, which has mixed us up, so to speak, in all kinds of disputes and discussions which are not germane to the main industries of my constituency. If there should be industrial disputes of a nature which probably would not affect us at all, we might find ourselves greatly embarrassed by them.
We now have only two conventional ships, apart from ferries, to deal with all the trade and the movement of cattle and lambs in Orkney and Shetland. I ask the Leader of the House to be so kind as to remind the Scottish Office and other Ministries concerned of some contingent plans that might be got out of the pigeon-hole where, I hope, they rest, and brushed down.
The other two matters I wish to touch upon very briefly are these. I and many other hon. Members are against imposing a guillotine upon constitutional Bills. In the forthcoming Session we are to have three constitutional Bills of great importance. If we look back upon the past Session, we know that one constitutional Bill got into considerable trouble and that the efforts to impose a guillotine were not successful.
We are coming back a fortnight later than usual. Therefore, I draw to the right hon. Gentleman's attention the need to get these Bills into Committee rather earlier than we did in the past Session. Perhaps he has it in mind to extend the next Session, or to carry one or two Bills forward into the following Session. I do not know what he has in mind. But I am sure he will agree that it is undesirable for the House to impose a time limit —except in special circumstances, or if there is a totally unjustifiable filibuster. But it will appear even more unjustifiable if we have taken a longer holiday than usual.
Far be it from me to curtail holidays. There is always a great danger in this debate that one day the Government will agree that we should not adjourn, which would throw the House of Commons into intolerable difficulty. However, that is a genuine point of which the Leader of the House is no doubt aware and he may bear it in mind.
The other matter I wish to raise is that we are somewhat short of information on Rhodesia. I should like an assurance from the Government that if anything important happens in Rhodesia—as it well may—the House will be recalled.

4.28 p.m.

Mr. Norman Tebbit: Today we had the last session but one of Prime Minister's Questions during this Session of Parliament. I say "but one" on the assumption that we may have one more session on the Thursday after we return. It is right, therefore, that, before we adjourn for the recess, we should review what has happened during the course of the experiment which started following the Prime Minister's statement on 12th May.
Hon. Members will recollect that the Prime Minister indicated then that he would retain rather than transfer more substantive Questions at his discretion. Here I should perhaps say that I appreciate that the Prime Minister cannot be here to reply to what I am about to say. I told him of my intention to raise this matter and he kindly said that he would read what I said—and no doubt he will enjoy it, too. The Prime Minister has a very good sense of humour which should not be underestimated. What is more, I am sure that the Lord President will be able to tell the Prime Minister anything that he thinks he should be told today.
In the words of the Prime Minister's Private Secretary in the letter which was written to the Clerk to the Committee which considered the practice of Prime Minister's Questions:
the Prime Minister believes that it is not possible to define with precision what questions he will retain".
Indeed, at Question Time today, the Prime Minister made that point once again.
That has been the nub of the problem for Back Benchers. The Prime Minister makes the rules but, unfortunately, he cannot quite tell us what the rules are. Indeed, one wonders at times if he is precise in his own mind about the rules.

Mr. Nigel Spearing: In the course of what I suspect was the careful preparation of his speech, has the hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit)

read the report of the Select Committee on Procedure on Prime Minister's Questions? Does he not think that, although the rules laid down there in correspondence may not be precise, they do at least give a reasonable guide?

Mr. Tebbit: There are two points arising from that. First, since I have quoted one of the letters which was in that report, I should have thought that the hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) would have guessed that I might have read it. Secondly, the whole point of what I am saying is that those rules which are laid down are so imprecise as to cause a great deal of confusion. I do not believe that this is a matter of partisan comment. I think that there are a number of hon. Members on both sides of the House who feel that this is so.
On 21st July, in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Shoreham (Mr. Luce), the Prime Minister said:
It would be helpful if these Questions were put down in detail as I should then be able to provide hon. Members with answers. I have not been transferring substantive Questions.
Later, in the same paragraph, he went on:
If the hon. Gentleman puts down a detailed Question to the Department of Industry he will get a proper reply."—[Official Report, 21st July 1977; Vol. 935, c. 1843.]
There seems to be some sort of contradiction there in that the Prime Minister was suggesting that my hon. Friend should put the detailed Question to him and it would not be transferred, yet a couple of lines later he was suggesting that it ought really to be put to the Department for Industry. [Interruption.] If the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) wants to indulge in this part of the debate, I hope, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that he will catch your eye.

Mr. Eric S. Heffer: In all fairness the Prime Minister said "substantive Questions". He did not say "detailed" Questions. There is a distinction. If one tables a Question asking whether there should be a factory in, say, the Walton constituency, clearly that is a detailed Question. I do not think that the Prime Minister should reply to that Question. But if one is tabling a more general substantive Question, that is a different matter, and that is the point that the Prime Minister is making.

Mr. Tebbit: I am in complete agreement with the hon. Member for Walton about much of what he has said. I repeat to him that what the Prime Minister said was:
It would be helpful if these Questions were put down in detail as I"—
that is, the Prime Minister—
should then be able to provide hon. Members with answers.
I think that the hon. Gentleman will now concede that there is an element of confusion in the matter.
According to the answers which the Prime Minister was kind enough to give me on 25th July, since his statement to the House on 12th May he had had 532 Questions for oral answer tabled to him, of which only 11 had been transferred. That sounds as though the experiment, which is due to come to an end shortly, has been quite successful. But, of course, the fact is that no one wants to have his Question to the Prime Minister transferred, since to do so is to forfeit the chance to get an answer from the Prime Minister that day. Therefore, hon. Members have tended not to put down Questions which would run any risk of being transferred.
Indeed, it was not very long before right hon. and hon. Members who are interested in these matters were gently testing the temperature of the water by inquiring, through Questions to the Prime Minister, what sort of Questions he would answer. I tabled Questions for Written Answer to the right hon. Gentleman on 18th and 23rd May to find out whether it was possible more clearly to establish his policy on the matter. For example, I asked whether he intended to answer Questions concerning the future of the British aerospace industry and the British electrical generation industry—because, in reply to the hon. Member for Moray and Nairn (Mrs. Ewing) on 12th May, he had implied that he might—and whether he would answer Questions about the British nuclear power programme, the future of the British motor industry and a number of other major issues, such as policy towards human rights in South Africa and Cambodia and the differences between the forces of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and those of the Warsaw Pact countries.
All those were Questions on policy which, from the statement of 12th May, one would have expected to be answered. Unfortunately, the Prime Minister used that device which Ministers of all parties have used from time immemorial—I hope that this is not, at the moment, a partisan matter—"I refer the hon. Member to the statement which I made in the House on 12th May." If it had been sufficiently clear, I should not have tabled the Questions. So we were no further forward.
Certainly the Prime Minister's reply did not encourage me to put down substantive Questions which might have been subject to transfer. In general I resorted to what I might refer to as traditional Questions. I do not like the "engagements for the day" formula. It is not elegant. It is hardly even fair. Sometimes I try to be fair, even to the Prime Minister. It reminds me of trying to gas rabbits. One may do it with style, but it is not fair, it is not sporting, and it is not elegant. But that Question is not transferable, which is the great advantage of it. This is why so many hon. Members have come to use it. Indeed, the practice of using that type of Question has grown since 12th May.
The Prime Minister also told me in his reply of 25th July that he had retained 50 Questions which he would otherwise have transferred. He sent me a list—the list to which he referred today. It seems to me that on the former criteria many, if not most, of those Questions would have been retained by the Prime Minister anyway. I should be happy to see whether there is a way in which the list could be given wider circulation, because it is of interest to a great many hon. Members.

Mr. Grimond: Put a copy in the Library.

Mr. Tebbit: That might be the solution—the right hon. Member is probably right.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: Why not read it?

Mr. Tebbit: It is a rather long list. I do not think that we want to do that, as it would take up a lot of time.
I am sorry that the hon. Member for Derby, North (Mr. Whitehead) is not here as he tabled a number of very pertinent Questions. For example, on 26th May he asked the Prime Minister


whether he was satisfied with the working of the bi-cameral system of government. That seems to be the sort of Question which could be answered only by the Prime Minister. Who else could be responsible for giving an answer on such a matter? Yet it is in the list of Questions which the Prime Minister says he would have transferred but now has kept, and he makes a virtue of it.
The hon. Member for Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton) asked the Prime Minister how many protests he had received against the recent appointment of Her Majesty's next ambassador to the United States of America. If one asks the Prime Minister how many protests he has received, who else can answer that Question? It is not a transferable Question. Again, that Question is on the list of those which the Prime Minister was sufficiently gracious to have kept under the new rules.
The hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Madden) asked the Prime Minister whether he would direct Ministers and departmental officials to substitute regular non-attributable briefings with attributable briefings to the media. Again, only the Prime Minister could give such a direction.
There are numerous examples of this sort. The one I mentioned today at Question Time was possibly the most remarkable. The hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. Wilson) put down a Question asking the Prime Minister when he was to meet the Scottish Council (Development and Industry) and the STUC to discuss employment prospects in Scotland. Curiously enough, I should have thought that that Question would be transferred because it concerned a specific matter of employment. This is an example of the problem we are having with these matters.

Mr. Cranley Onslow: Could my hon. Friend tell the House whether any of the Questions to which he has referred were likely to have been reached? It would be interesting to know whether the Prime Minister's willingness to retain a Question depends upon the likelihood of its being reached.

Mr. Tebbit: That is an unworthy thought that has crossed my mind, as has the unworthy thought that those Questions that might be reached might be retained

or transferred according to whether they had been put down, for example, by the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) or an hon. Member more agreeable to the Prime Minister. This is the sort of unworthy thought that would pass through hon. Members' minds from time to time.
I shall not detain the House with any further examples of these Questions, but I think that I have said sufficient to indicate that the confusion has been made rather worse by the Prime Minister's replies. We have a terrible difficulty. It is compounded because the rules that the Prime Minister applies to Oral Questions are now different from those he applies to Written Questions.
The Prime Minister's statement related only to Oral Questions and, therefore, he presumably applies the old rules to Written Questions. I have tested this out by putting down Written Questions. It seems that the Prime Minister is applying different rules to the two. Yet, in my opinion. the Written Question is a very important and much underrated art form in parliamentary life.
Let me instance its use in relation to the Prime Minster and the difficulties which the Prime Minister now seeks to put in the way of the questioner. I noticed a little while ago—I think one or two others did, too—that the Prime Minister was becoming just a little casual in what he said in answer to Questions at the Dispatch Box and now and again, by sheer chance, he made mis-statements of fact. Being of a generous frame of mind, I thought that it was worth putting down Written Questions to the Prime Minister to allow him to clear them up, which I was sure he would want to do. For example, on 17th May, in Oral Questions, the Prime Minister said to my hon. Friend the Member for Melton (Mr. Latham)
Inflation is declining and will continue to decline."—[Official Report, 17th May 1977: Vol. 932, c. 230.]
I thought that that was rather curious, so I asked the Prime Minister whether he would list the year-on-year rate of inflation for each of the last six months for which figures were available. I found that the percentage was going up and up: 15·0, 15·1, 16·6, 16·2—down slightly —16·7, 17·5. So the Prime Minister had obviously made a slip and would welcome the chance to put it right by means of a Written Question.
But the fear in my mind would be that, if I had put that down as an Oral Question, different rules would have applied, and I do not know whether he would have accepted it. That was difficult enough, and I had to ask him whether he was using the same basis in his Oral Answers and his Written Answers. He was kind enough to say, on 21st June in a Written Answer, that he was of the opinion
that we were in a period of temporary bump ' because of the events last autumn."—[Official Report, 21st June 1977; Vol. 933, c. 426.]
I am not quite sure what a "temporary 'bump'" is, but I do not think the Prime Minister is either.
The Prime Minister has an unfortunate record in these matters. Indeed, since then he has made it much more difficult to get replies at all. On 30th June, in an oral reply, the right hon. Gentleman expressed the view that a man should be free within limits not to join a trade union. I asked the Prime Minister whether he would define the limits. He resorted to a new system which said he had nothing to add to his reply of 30th June. He used the formula on a couple of occasions.
I thought that perhaps there was a different way to approach these matters, and I asked him another Question on 29th June:
if, pursuant to his statement, Official Report, 23rd June 1977, c. 1738, that on three occasions at least in the last few years people have been dismissed by the Grunwick company for joining a trade union, he will list the persons concerned and the dates of their dismissal."—[Official Report, 29th June 1977; Vol. 934, c. 250.]
That question, curiously enough, the right hon. Gentleman referred to the Secretary of State for Employment, although the Question was about a statement that he had made at the Dispatch Box. The Secretary of State for Employment had a different technique in answering. He just said "No." So the run-around was complete, and one had all the treatments: the mis-statement of fact, the wild comment—

Mr. Arthur Lewis: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am sorry to raise this matter, but I want to raise it as a general and not as a particular issue.

For many years—the Leader of the House will bear me out—we have had these debates and I have always been told that one cannot raise in this debate issues on the merits and particulars of why we should not adjourn for a recess. One can mention that one thinks we should not adjourn because this or that should or should not be discussed, but one cannot go on.
As suits have been mentioned, I am entitled to say that the hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit) should have a black suit, but I cannot say that he should have it made at Marks & Spencer or Moss Bros. and that it should be made of this or that material. I have always been told—and I have been pulled up many times by the Chair—that we must not go into the rights and wrongs of any situation.
To be fair to the hon. Member for Chingford, I think my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton) went a little bit too far. But what I want to get clear is that, if it is in order, I give you fair warning. Mr. Deputy Speaker, that I want to go through the whole list of motions on the Order Paper and I want to make a long speech on every one —much longer than the hon. Member. I want to go through all those motions and add a few for myself. If that is to be the pattern, the Leader of the House can go home and come back tomorrow morning.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I have listened with deep interest to the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Lewis). His last few sentences would be the extreme position which one might reach. But as long as a matter is related to the reasons why the House should not adjourn for a recess, all that is said is in order. It is a difficult matter and the Chair has to strike a balance about the amount of detail any hon. or right hon. Member may go into in making his speech. It must be left to the Chair, and the Chair will use its discretion in this matter.

Mr. Tebbit: I have now completed my detailed points
The essence is that this is an experiment that will end at the end of this Session. We have to make up our minds whether it should carry on in the next Session. We have very little time for these matters to be considered. It would


not be a bad idea if we thought about it during the recess—if we go into recess—or if we thought about it a little longer now before we go into recess and perhaps delayed passing the motion.
The heart of the problem is that many Ministers—Prime Ministers and other Ministers—do not like answering Questions. Indeed, I think that the Prime Minister would prefer to have 15 minutes twice a week to conduct a seminar, perhaps of the sort to which he has so kindly invited me during the recess. That is an invitation that I shall certainly take up, and I hope that some of my hon. Friends will come with me, as the Prime Minister suggested. A seminar on subjects of the Prime Minister's own choosing would probably suit him best. The fact is that Prime Minister's Question Time can be much better than either the Questions or the questioners, but it cannot be any better than the Prime Minister. That is the true heart of the problem.
That time gives hon. Members the chance to question the Prime Minister, not, as the hon. Member for Walton said, on finicky details, but on the broad sweep of Government policies across the board. The difficulty that has arisen is now compounded by the fact that these Questions have, I submit, become prime media fodder—for want of a better expression—and many Members of Parliament who want to raise their pet subjects and achieve the maximum publicity for them raise the matter with the Prime Minister, knowing that that is the most likely way in which to obtain that publicity. Therefore, many more Questions are tabled on each occasion than can conceivably be dealt with, which means that topicality is lost because they are put down a fortnight before. This is one of the problems that have arisen.
I think that topicality might be regained by altering the rules slightly. At the moment, the only way in which one can ensure topicality is by going in for phrases such as "If the Prime Minister will visit Ponders End" or "If the right hon. Gentleman will list his engagements". Thus, we have got ourselves into the sort of tangle that we reached on, I think, Tuesday of this week, when Mr. Speaker had to resort to a device that he thought would improve matters and call only the hon. Member whose Question was being taken.
Almost at the time of the Questions being asked it was realised that that could easily have led to the exclusion from Prime Minister's Question Time of the Leaders of the Opposition parties. That would have struck right across the point of Prime Minister's Question Time.
May I therefore suggest a few ways in which we could improve matters? First, I suggest that we might consider shortening the period of notice in respect of Prime Minister's Questions to help achieve topicality without going into the generalised questions. I appreciate that that step would possibly raise a problem for the Prime Minister himself and those who draft the answers, but I think that less than a fortnight could be achieved.
Secondly, perhaps we could return to the practice of grouping, which would avoid the repetition of the words "I refer the hon. Member to the answer that I gave earlier this afternoon", which, if used in five or six cases, takes up quite a lot of time. To avoid the abuse that has grown up from the grouping practice, the grouping might be limited to those Questions that might reasonably be reached—say, four or five.
I do not think that we should let the experiment that we have been carrying out continue into the next Session. The fashion of Questions put down will change in response to the style of the Prime Minister of the day. It will change, too, in response to the way in which Mr. Speaker handles the matter of supplementary questions.
I suggest that it would be useful, before the House adjourns for the recess—and, indeed, afterwards—if we were to consider the way in which this experiment has operated. Before we embark on Prime Minister's Questions next Session we should agree that, first, we should go back to the practice as it was before 12th May, and, secondly, that there should be further talks, formal or informal, but this time, especially among those who take most part in Prime Minister's Questions, about how the time could be made more valuable to the Prime Minister, to the House, and to the public at large.

4.55 p.m.

Mr. William Ross: Those of us who were here earlier today heard the Prime Minister give the hon.


Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit) the strange title of "his most backward pupil". I thought that the Prime Minister was rather unfair. But, after hearing the hon. Gentleman's speech on this motion, I feel that perhaps the Prime Minister rather over-estimated the hon. Gentleman.
There is one point I want to make about Question Time. I had always supposed that the purpose of Questions was to elicit information. If a Question were put down asking a Prime Minister whether he would visit a particular place, and the answer was "Yes" or "No", I should have thought that the information had been provided. The same is true if he is asked about his engagements. If he lists his engagements, no one in this House, according to any rule of the House, has a right to a supplementary question. If the information is provided, it is provided. In my view, the Chair itself should exercise a considerable discipline on hon. Members by ignoring anyone who rises to put a supplementary question which is quite unrelated to the original Question.
The hon. Member for Chingford says that Ministers do not like Questions. I can tell him that Ministers enjoy Questions. I used to love them. But some of them became so easy, so predictable. I recollect the exchanges between Winston Churchill and Emrys Hughes, and they were enjoyed by the whole House. The poverty of ingenuity of Members of Parliament to be able to put a straightforward Question to the Prime Minister or to anyone else is a reflection upon our own abilities.
We should not rise for the recess. I will give one or two specific reasons. I think that everyone in Scotland was fairly horrified this morning to read that a sheriff had been sacked. Actually, he has not been sacked yet. An order was made under the Sheriff Courts (Scotland) Act, the Sheriff (Removal from Office) Order 1977, made on 22nd July, laid before Parliament on 27th July. That order, made two days ago, is
subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament within forty days after being laid before Parliament and cannot come into operation before the expiry of that forty day period".
Those are 40 parliamentary days. Yet we are to rise for the recess tomorrow.

Forty days take us almost into 1978, depending on when we rise for the Christmas Recess. I think that is most unsatisfactory.
This is a sheriff—what English Members would call a county court judge—and he has been sacked. I remember exercising my powers in 1974 to warn this judge about his conduct in sponsoring and being the chief propagandist, or publicist, for the Scottish Plebiscite Society, running plebiscites. At that time, he was sending people in local plebiscites cards to be returned to the registration officer. We felt that his action was not quite in keeping, after an inquiry by the Lord President of the Court of Session and the Lord Justice Clerk. I felt that a warning should be given, and it was given.
Recently, the sheriff has been advertising meetings of this society of his, and there was a photograph of himself in wig and robes. I do not think that anyone mistook him for the Speaker. Everyone realised who he was. The question in people's minds was whether it was in keeping for someone in his position to lend his name to such activities. An inquiry was instituted by the Lord Justice Clerk and the Court of Session, Lord Emslie and Lord Wheatley, but the sheriff ignored them and refused to come before them to discuss the matter.
It might well be that that was the right thing to do. It is a touchy subject, because about half the judges in Scotland at present have political records. They are political beings. They sat on this Bench as Lord Advocate or Solicitor-General. Those who did not come into the House were those who could not get seats, or they would certainly have stood for election. The point is that it is a subject of such difficulty that, rather than have it rest for all that time, we should have been able to debate it in this House on a Prayer.
I read in the Scottish Press that the Scottish National Party was to raise this matter. Where are they? Not one of them is here. They will have plenty to say about it. This man, Sheriff Thomson, says that he is not a member of the Scottish National Party, and I accept that, but he makes no bones about how he feels that Scotland should be


governed—that there should be an independent Scotland.

Mr. Grimond: The right hon. Gentleman has raised an extremely important subject. I wholly agree that there should be a debate on it. Will he, for the benefit of the House, give us a little more information? Will this sheriff be allowed to sit for the 40 parliamentary days? Secondly, what would be the procedure in England? Is this the method of removing someone in England? The sheriff is a good deal more important than a county court judge. He combines that with considerably wider jurisdiction, I believe. Thirdly, can the right hon. Gentleman tell us something about the Plebiscite Society? Does it pursue political aims? Does it hold plebiscites on anything, from euthanasia to the morals of parliamentarians? What exactly is it?

Mr. Ross: To answer the last question first, I understand that it is related purely to how Scotland should be governed—an independent Scotland. I believe that Sheriff Thomson has been doing this job since 1949. That is interesting, because that was before a Tory Government made him a sheriff. I think that he has been a sheriff for 22 years. But the society is related to the one subject.
As to whether the sheriff sits for the 40 days, I am quoting what the Statutory Instrument says—that the order cannot come into operation before the expiry of that 40-day period. However, from reading the Press this morning, I understand that he has virtually been suspended and that someone else is doing his job.
I can understand how there could be a conflict about impartiality. In a recent case in Scotland some young misguided people—one of whom had been an officer of the Scottish National Party—became involved in something called the Tartan Army. They believed in it. They eventually came before a court. Had they come before the sheriff court in which Sheriff Thomson was sitting, one can conceive the possibility of a conflict. I do not say that that ever happened, or ever would arise, and I can see why my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has taken action, but the timing of it is unfortunate. It leaves the matter open for about four months. That is one reason why I have spoken today.
This is not the first time that I have come across this kind of thing. The papers in Scotland were trying to refer to "the last case". What is even worse is what sometimes happens. In one case, to my anger, I heard of a sheriff who was resigning because of ill health—that is the convenient phrase that is used—and then I discovered that it was due to pressure, by the legal profession and others in the locality, related to his sentencing policy. I do not mind telling the House that I approved of his sentencing policy, but it was interfering with some people's social life; they did not like the care that had to be taken about drunk driving charges, and so on. It is not the Crown Office that institutes an inquiry. It is the Secretary of State.
This is a serious matter, which concerns me. I regret that Sheriff Thomson did not take the warning. Other people have done it. I remember a judge—an eminent Scottish Tory—who accepted an invitation from Alec Douglas-Home and the Tory Party to participate in a shadow constitutional commission. One wonders at the intelligence of a judge—I believe that it was Lord Avonside—doing that. He accepted an invitation to serve on the commission, but I can assure the House that he did not serve for long. He took the warning. I think it is a great pity that Sheriff Thomson did not take the warning.
This is another reason why I object to the Early-Day Motion relating to the Father of the House. Early-Day Motions are, 1 assume, supposed to be debated. Certain Early-Day Motions, must, as you know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, be debated at once if they affect the position of Mr. Speaker or are a challenge to his authority or that of Mr. Deputy Speaker. What hope is there of an Early-Day Motion being debated if it was put down only last Wednesday? There is no hope of the House discussing it. It is an abuse of the Early-Day Motion procedure. This has been a fairly shabby week in the House of Commons.
I was one of five Privy Councillors—two were Conservatives, two were Labour, and there was a Scottish nationalist—who served on the Select Committee, which produced a unanimous report and which followed precedent in all the matters that it considered. But it was a


travesty of a debate, because of some of the speeches. It will take me a long time to forget it. More people voted than had actually read the evidence in the report.
We who served on the Select Committee were worried about producing at this time of the year a report that would lie, undebated for perhaps three months. So we went out of our way to ensure that the report could be completed and printed in time for my right hon. Friend to arrange for the debate.

Mr. Victor Goodhew: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for the right hon. Gentleman to attempt now to rehash the whole debate that we had last Tuesday?

Mr. William Hamilton: It is going on.

Mr. Goodhew: Surely, it is a matter for the Chair, Mr. Deputy Speaker, whether the right hon. Gentleman continues. He is entitled to discuss those matters which he feels should be debated now rather than after the recess. But he should not go through every debate that we have had during this Session of Parliament.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The only observation that I wish to make is that an hon. Member cannot reopen a matter that has been settled.

Mr. Ross: Exactly. I have no wish to reopen a matter that has been settled. I believe it was the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) who said that we should not do so. But he referred to some matters that ought to be settled before three months had passed. That is what I am coming to. We tried to get out our report so that it would not hang over hon. Members for three months, and it was right that we had the debate. With respect, having sat since last November on this matter, I am entitled to opinions on decisions that were made and the way in which affairs were conducted in the House. I want to see them conducted more efficiently. Unless we settle this issue, I shall find it difficult to serve on any other such Select Committee.
My other point—which I hope the House and you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, will consider—is that, if we are to change the

rules or the customs of the House, we should not do it in the middle of the game. It has always been the custom, in dealing with such things as this—I want hon. Members to consider this, because it is not settled yet—that when lion Members make a speech before withdrawing, it is listened to in silence. If they are to be allowed to come back and interrupt other speeches, it will not be enough to say "That is the new custom". The new custom will be that their speeches will be challengeable. Hasty decisions such as that are quite wrong. I want consideration to be given to what is the new custom of the House in such cases. They will not happen every week. They may not hap pen for years. But we must think carefully before departing from customs that are hallowed by time. The custom we now have is not yet hallowed, and I do not think we can continue in that way.
It is time that we discussed some of the things that the House did not discuss when considering the report. I hope that the hon. Member for St. Albans (Mr. Goodhew) will think that I am in order. We asked about a certain case, and questioned why a person had not been prosecuted. He was a Tory councillor, formerly employed at Scotland Yard, who was evidently au fait with the Press and the Bars of the House of Commons and who eventually purloined an official form and gave it to the Press with the names of some of my right hon. Friends on it. It was completely bogus. Nobody, except Scotland Yard, knew the name of this man until we had our inquiry. He resigned and went elsewhere. One of the questions we asked was why he was not prosecuted. That would have been worth considering.

Mr. Tebbit: I do not want to argue out any of these matters with the right hon. Gentleman but, with respect, I think that he is wrong about whether the name of the gentleman in question was known before the Select Committee Report was published. The name had been published in the Press about that time and was quite widely known.

Mr. Ross: It may have been quite widely known but I can assure my hon. Friend that not as much publicity was given to the fact that the form was bogus as was given to the original allegation.


That matter never was mentioned in the debate.
There were other things. We suggested that the House should consider whether Opposition spokesmen should get themselves involved—as a matter of principle, quite outwith the particular case in question. During the late 1960s we used to talk about liaison committees and Opposition spokesmen for this and that. Then they suddenly graced themselves with the title "Shadow Secretary of State". That actually appears on headings. I remember seeing, in relation to some hon. Gentleman from Scotland, the "Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland." If people are to have status and eminence such as that they had better be careful about mixing up their speeches from that Front Bench with business interests.

Mr. Robert Hughes: Perhaps that is why it is done.

Mr. Ross: This is something we must discuss, and that is why I would prefer it if the House was not departing tomorrow. I think it is worth discussing. We mentioned it in respect of the Select Committee. It was touched on by my hon. Friend the Member for York (Mr. Lyon) in what was one of the best of all the speeches. I hope that my right hon. Friend and the House will pay early attention to that matter.
I have said what I wanted to say about the Early-Day Motion. I think it is despicable. I think it is a cowardly motion. It was tabled at a time when the House could not debate it. That is like doing something and then running away. I should have preferred the House to stay on for another few days to dispose of that matter and to find out what it was all about. It was a shabby end to a shabby week.

5.15 p.m.

Mr. Nicholas Ridley: I hope that the right hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) will forgive me if I do not follow either of the two matters to which he devoted the main part of his speech except to say that he seemed half to suggest that it should be a function of Select Committees of this House on occasion to ask why people were not prosecuted. It is but a short step to ask why people were prosecuted. Any suggestion that the House

should seek through its Committees or on the Floor of the House to influence prosecutions is one to guard against very strongly. It is a matter for the authorities and the police, not for the House.

Mr. Robert Hughes: I see that the hon. Gentleman is a signatory to Early-Day Motion No. 465. Could he say why so many of his hon. Friends have thought it necessary—having defended one of their colleagues on Tuesday—when the Father of the House chose to exercise his rights to table a motion on the Order Paper, to criticise him in these terms? On reflection, does he not think that it would be more honourable for him and his hon. Friends to withdraw this Early-Day Motion?

Mr. Ridley: That seems to be irrelevant to the point on which the hon. Gentleman intervened. But I do not wish to be drawn into that. I want to advance a reason why the House should not adjourn until it has debated a matter which I believe to be of the very gravest nature. I refer to the threat to a large number of small businesses, and larger businesses, and to the employment that they represent in North London—NW2— by the denial to those businesses of the mail that brings with it the cheques and money upon which they depend for their liquidity and to pay their wages.
I do not intend to make a speech on the Grunwick dispute. That is not part of my case and it is not a matter which the House should necessarily discuss before it adjourns. But the innocent victims of this dispute are between 100 and 200 companies in that part of London, many of whom are on the verge of bankruptcy and the rest of whom are threatened by the denial of mail. Many of my hon. Friends felt extremely concerned about this, and last night we asked whether we could see the Secretary of State for Industry. We were informed that, for very good reasons, he was unavailable. I asked whether we could see the Minister of State, and we were told that he was unavailable. Always prepared to try again, I asked whether we could see the Under-Secretary. He, too, refused to see us.
I feel that it is right that this matter should be raised and the Government should be called to account, because, having failed to achieve privately what


we sought, it is our right and duty to seek to achieve it publicly.

Mr. Spearing: The hon. Gentleman has expressed concern for the firms in a part of North-West London. Can he tell the House whether, among those who applied to see the Ministers, there were representatives of the constituencies affected? Can he tell the House whether, over the period of three or four weeks when the whole of East London was affected by another dispute with a different cause, he saw fit for any reason whatsoever to see the authorities then? There was concern expressed on that occasion on both sides of the House about what was a far more difficult and dangerous situation for many small businesses and pensioners throughout East London. Why did he not do something then?

Mr. Ridley: I shall come to one part of the hon. Gentleman's question later in my speech but I want now to deal with another part. I informed the Minister for Housing and Construction, in whose constituency the Cricklewood sorting office lies, that I intended to raise this matter this afternoon if I caught your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The Minister seemed to find it a pity that I should seek to intervene on behalf of the thousands of people whose jobs are threatened. When I asked him whether he would be present and contribute to the debate, telling us what he had done to press the Government to do the right thing, he turned a little hostile, if I may say so. In the absence of his seeing to the interests of his own constituents, it unfortunately falls to me to do so. No doubt, the right hon. Gentleman's fear of falling out of favour with the powers-that-be in the Labour Party, favour which might eventually lead to his being made, say, Lord Grunwick, has denied him the opportunity to speak out on this outrage—and outrage it is, because these people are innocent victims of a dispute in which they have played no part.
When there was a postal strike in 1971—I come now to the other part of the hon. Gentleman's intervention—my right hon. Friends at that time waived the Post Office monopoly. They made it possible for those whose mail was innocently caught up in a dispute in which

they had no part to go to the sorting offices and collect the mail.
I quote from the statement of 18th January 1971 by Mr. Christopher Chat-away, who was then Minister of Posts and Telecommunications:
I have given the Post Office a general authority under the terms of the Post Office Act 1969, enabling it to waive the monopoly provisions of that Act as they affect postal services, and the Post Office will deal with individual cases on their merits with the aim of being as helpful as possible. Many traders will make their own arrangements for the delivery of urgent letters, but this is not likely to involve any infringement of the monopoly."—[Official Report, 18th January 1971; Vol. 809, c. 522.]
That is what we did then, and that is what the Post Office requested should be done on Monday by the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for Industry. That is what should be done. Again, this is not to intervene in the Grunwick affair. Nor is it to intervene in the legal situation which right hon. and learned Gentlemen have been debating in past months. I am not saying that the law should or should not be used, nor am I trying to interpret what the law is, nor am I intervening in the running debate between both sides of the House as to what the efficacy of the law is in industrial relations. I am leaving all that ground aside because it is contentious. I am saying only that, in the event of the postmen refusing to deliver letters to third parties in clear breach of the Post Office Act 1953, the individuals aggrieved have the right to go to sort and collect their own mail.
The Post Office asked that that be done. It is not that the Post Office had resisted the suggestion. The Government, in their craven fashion, refused to allow it to be done. The irony of the situation is that the Grunwick mail has been delivered. I believe that there is not a single mail bag in Cricklewood which concerns Grunwick because that firm has been allowed to come to collect its own mail—but not the innocent parties. I say "innocent"; I am not saying that Grunwick is guilty, but I refer to those parties which are in no sense concerned in the dispute.
Why have the Government refused to do that? I am not traducing them when I say that they feel that it would be


provocative. Surely, it was more provocative to allow the representatives of the Grunwick firm to collect their mail than it would be to allow the representatives of other firms not in any sense involved to collect their mail. That must be the case.
If nothing is done in this case, it lays us open as a nation to selective boycott and discrimination against the mail of any individual, organisation or company. That would be in breach of the law, for good reasons, reasons which we shall, presumably, be debating next Session when we consider a possible Bill which the Government have mentioned.
In the meantime, it must be remembered that the law stands as it is for the very good reason that the mail is the property of him who sends it, not of the Post Office. To detain or restrict an individual's mail is tantamount to interfering with, if not removing, that property.
This case is of real concern because property in that sense is the livelihood of the firms concerned—between 100 and 200—and the livelihood of the employees who work in those firms, as well as—this is important, too—the livelihood and interests of individuals in NW2 who also have been denied the receipt of their mail.
To put fear of provocation in front of those good commercial and individual interests backed by the law is to get one's priorities upside down. Whenever the words "industrial relations" have been mentioned, that is what the Government, and, indeed, the Leader of the House in his past incarnation, have always done. But we know that on the previous occasion in 1971, when the monopoly was waived, many firms collected their own mail without any trouble or difficulty. There was no provocation, there were no scenes at the sorting offices. Small private firms came into existence with the express intention of delivering and collecting mail for clients for whom it was urgent. There was no difficulty on that occasion. Everything worked.
I pay a well-deserved tribute to the vast majority of postal workers. They do obey the law. When the National Association for Freedom obtained an injunction at the time of the South African postal boycott, despite the fact that the Attorney-General said that it could not

be granted because it would be a provocation, what happened? The postmen obeyed it to a man. The person who was right on that occasion was Mr. Gouriet, and the person who was wrong was the Attorney-General. His fears of the militant revolutionary nature of the postmen are utterly misconceived. They are the most reasonable and moderate body of men, and I pay tribute to them.
I do not believe that the Post Office workers support the small number of people at the Cricklewood office who refuse to handle the mail between individuals and companies in NW2 who happen to have been caught up in this dispute for the simple geographical reason that they are in the same London postal district as is Grunwick.
The Leader of the House has been Secretary of State for Employment, and he has gone through his traumas of believing that everything done by, and in the name of, trade unionism must by definition be right, must be above the law, and it must be a provocation to seek in any way to influence it. That is the accusation against the right hon. Gentleman and the Labour Party.
Before he goes on holiday, the right hon. Gentleman must realise that he has the power to do something about this affair, not in a provocative fashion, not through the law, but by establishing the obvious, fundamental and clearly right principle that if the Post Office will not do that which it is statutorily charged to do it has no right to maintain the monopoly. It is the Government's responsibility to waive that monopoly so that these firms and jobs can be saved, and so that reasonableness and common sense can prevail again in a world turned upside down by the right hon. Gentleman's trade union friends.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Before I call the next hon. Member to speak, perhaps I may remind the House that, although, of course, the matter is in the hands of the House, the interests of other hon. Members who will be called later in connection with other business have to be safeguarded. I appeal to the House for brief speeches, but, of course, that is in the hands of hon. Members.

5.30 p.m.

Mr. Nigel Spearing: I followed the speech of the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley)—which was no doubt calling for another debate to discuss the monopoly of the Post Office—with interest. His speeches always attract attention in the House. They are usually elegantly phrased and laced with sufficient wit and perception to be enjoyable, even though we do not always agree with what the hon. Member says.
However, in the speech that he has just made those qualities for which he is so well known were noticeably lacking. Perhaps he was put off by the point that he has asked for a debate—indeed, he has put down a motion—criticising my right hon. Friend the Father of the House. Now, given an opportunity to say why he supports that motion and presumably, by that very fact, supports a debate, he does not follow it with his voice.
Nor, indeed, did the hon. Member follow with his voice the question that I put to him. We know of his interest in Cirencester and Tewkesbury. Indeed, I recall a particular Committee in which those places, in relation to dock work, came up time and again. He did not explain why, in producing a speech at grievance time, he was so concerned for the small manufacturers of NW2. He has been asked about any other hon. Members who might have applied for this particular meeting with a Minister. He mentioned one hon. Member whom he invited, but he did not say who went.
I find it remarkable that he should take up such matters, particularly this matter, because the postal dispute to which I referred in my intervention was not that of 1971 but that of February this year. In that dispute it was not merely a single postal number district that was involved but the whole of the eastern districts, numbered 1 to 23, I think. At that time it was very difficult—I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit); this was a non-party matter—to get anyone interested, even more so the Post Office, in providing even the basic information, and it was not merely factories that were involved but pensioners and everyone. I could not get a statement. In the end, I found out that a telephone call to the Press Association was regarded as

the only sort of public relations that were necessary.

Mr. Tebbit: The hon. Gentleman is correct about what he says about that dispute. It was a very difficult dispute which affected my constituents and his, and many other people. I pay tribute to him because he was one of the very few other hon. Members of this House who supported me in the efforts that I made in applications for debates under Standing Order No. 9 and similar matters to try to get the subject discussed. As it happened, I did not need the help of my hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley), because I was doing the job. My hon. Friend has come into this matter because hon. Members who represent the constituents involved in the dispute about which he has been talking have sat tight on their bottoms and done absolutely nothing to help.

Mr. Spearing: I turn now to another matter. The hon. Member for Chingford paid me a tribute, and his point was a fair one.
I turn to the question of another debate that we need concerning the interests of hon. Members. This was mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross). This was the heart of the unfortunate and unhappy debate that we had on Tuesday. Whatever the conclusion to which the House came in that debate, it must have been an unhappy one. It was doubly unhappy because of the action that certain hon. Members took in relation to their votes.
It is well known in the House that when we face each other across this Floor, we know of certain interests. I think that it was the Prime Minister who once said that he does not think "There is the Member for this place and there is the Member for that place" when facing the Opposition, but "There is the Member for oil, there is the Member for motor cars, there is the Member for that City firm, and there is the Member for this, that and the other interest." In fact, some Labour Members look across to Opposition Members and say to themselves "Has that hon. Member an interest in my constituency, or might he have, or does the particular firm, advisory service or news organisation have an interest in my constituency?" For several years, until


very recently, the answer was that no one knew. Looking the other way, it was reasonably well known in terms of trade union affiliations.
I hope that the House will return to this subject. In order to debate it, we should not adjourn until Monday or Tuesday of next week. We certainly want one day devoted to this important subject.
It is the declaration of interest that is the key to this matter. We differ across the Floor and I differ with some of my hon. Friends on the matter whether hon. Members should pursue paid occupations where obligations are undertaken in addition to their public office as a Member of Parliament. We can argue that in a different area. There is disagreement. However, if there is disagreement, no one can say that if persons have monetary obligations or have links with firms or consultancies, they must not be declared. That is the ground rule. That is, as it were, the consensus to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock was referring in another area. It is those conventions of behaviour that make the House what it is. I do not believe that the House could operate under any other system.
Indeed, I think that we agreed in the debate on Tuesday that that is the position and has been for over a century when hon. Members speak in the House. We have now extended it, as it were, to a permanent declaration to back it up. It is therefore the question of the declaration of interest which is the heart of the matter. During the debate that I hope that we shall have, if not next week, when we return to the House in November, it is the manner in which this is done and the ways in which we can impose upon ourselves the disciplines which are necessary that will be the centre of this matter.
The Select Committee, as my right hon. Friend reminded us, drew our specific attention to the matter of self-styled shadow spokesmen for this, that or the other. The difference between a member of an Opposition committee and a shadow spokesman or a shadow Secretary of State for Scotland is a very important difference. Before the 1950s, when this habit crept in, there was no implication, necessarily, that a person who was selected by an Opposition Leader to mark a person on the other side would be a member of a Government with that post

after another General Election. However, a change in the habits of the Press and the media, and indeed, of this House, of calling someone shadow this, that or the other, suggests that they are putative occupiers of that office.
That is a very significant point because it means, among other things—it is not always so; there are no guarantees about this—that if after a General Election the other party comes into office, it can be presumed that there is a good chance that Mr. A or Mr. B will be Secretary of State for this or Minister for that. This is true of both major parties.
Concerning my own party, that clearly puts such a person at some advantage. In going around members of my party and visiting trade unions and outside organisations of any sort, a person of that kind would be listened to and talked to in a manner that would be rather different from that if he were an ordinary Back Bencher. In other words, doors might be opened to him and information given to him which would not be the case if, first, he were a Back Bencher and, secondly, he were merely a member of an Opposition committee. Therefore, he is in a position which is distinct and he has a privilege and a responsibility. It is that responsibility which it at the heart of this matter.
I give an example which I do not mean for any special reason. We all respect and know the right hon. Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Pym), who is at present sitting on the Opposition Front Bench, If, in his past office as, say, Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, he engaged in some commercial activity in that country, but declared that interest only in the "Ballymena Gazette" or mentioned it en passant during a visit by a Government representative to Antrim, I do not think this House would regard that as a sufficient measure of declaration.
I mention this to the Conservative Party, and to those who are reflecting on the debate to which we shall surely return on this matter, because the Conservative Party is in a particularly difficult position. Conservative Members not only urge each other, but urge the country, to exploit the position in which they find themselves in order to use private enterprise and initiative, if not to gain a crock of gold, at least to gain capital sums for their old age.
We hear that every day and every week from the right hon. Lady the Leader of the Opposition, who tells us that the economic salvation of the nation depends upon these very acquisitive and enterprising instincts. But there is all the difference in the world between the legitimate use of skill and the exploitation of a position that has been achieved by a different route for a different purpose.
The voice of my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) often tends to change, as mine is changing now, because he is openly contemptuous of Conservative Members. He knows that while they may be excellent Members of this House and excellent constituency Members, they are also using their position to be selected for this, that or the other remunerative position which they otherwise would not occupy and are using it in a way that people might think improper.
There is no definite line to draw in this matter. It is a very difficult matter of balance and judgement. But certain actions are taken which everyone knows go far beyond not only discretion and good judgement but, some people would say, morality. That is the difference between the two sides of the House. That was the difference on Tuesday, and I am sorry that Conservative Members perhaps did not understand that when they voted.

Mr. Goodhew: The hon. Gentleman seems to be suggesting that it is only hon. Members on this side of the House who take advantage of their position. But there are many right hon. Members on the Government Front Bench who have acquired assets over their lifetime which they certainly would not have acquired had it been a matter of skill in some outside job.

Mr. Spearing: The hon. Gentleman has raised a point which might otherwise have been a point of criticism in my speech. I would say straightaway that my point about exploitation applies to hon. Members whichever side of the House they sit on. The point I was making, and Hansard will bear this out, is that the Conservative Party advocates that in a monetary and competitive society it is right and moral to press one's advantage as far as it will go. That is

the difference between the two sides of the House.
I make no bones about the fact that this may well affect hon. Members on both sides, but the difference is that one side says that this particular form of activity is right and must be pressed at all times and, indeed, that the economic salvation of the country depends upon it. I believe that a great deal of what is wrong with our country originates from that. Short cuts produce the biggest profits but those short cuts are not always the most productive ones for the country, for society or, indeed, for the reputation of those who have taken them.

Mr. Onslow: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. You appealed for short speeches. I wonder whether you could offer guidance to the hon. Gentleman by indicating what you meant by short speeches?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The Chair is watching the clock. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will also watch the clock.

Mr. Spearing: The interjection of the hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow) came as I was about to move on to a second reason why we should not adjourn.
My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House is responsible to this House for the conduct of its business and, indeed, for the manner in which the Order Paper is used. I would particularly draw to his attention some of the problems that have arisen with regard to EEC matters.
I shall be quite brief because he is aware of some of these problems and I do not wish to draw his attention to them once again. However, there is a matter of considerable importance, and it is the only one that I raise. It concerns the way in which we deal with motions on the Order Paper relating to EEC documents.
If we were able to come back next week, we should be able to cut into that great backlog of EEC documents that we wish to debate and which I believe everyone wants to deal with as thoroughly as possible. One of our problems is the Government's attitude to those documents and, indeed, when they are likely to be debated.
I asked my right hon. Friend about this on 11th July when I complained that it was the Government's practice not to put down substantive motions on the Order Paper until the evening before the documents were to be taken. If an hon. Member wants to amend the Government motion, he has to go to the Table Office the night before to see what the motion is. Hon. Members who wish to table amendments can do so only by going to the Table Office.
I asked the Lord President whether he would perhaps review this practice and follow the normal procedure of putting motions on the Remaining Orders of the Day before bringing them forward for debate. To my surprise, my right hon. Friend said:
We are following the normal practice of the House in these matters.… At the moment, we are following the general practice of the House."—[Official Report, 11th July 1977; Vol. 935, c. 25.]
From my observations, the direct reverse is the case. Frequently, and almost invariably, we get notice that business is put on the Remaining Orders of the Day—properly by convention—and no one quarrels with that. But my point is that EEC documents of this sort are not handled in that way. They are not given time for hon. Members to consider them or for amendments to be put down or, indeed, for representations to be made.
I see my hon. Friend the Member for Farnworth (Mr. Roper) present. He and I have had occasion to make representations, sometimes in mutual accord and sometimes not. We need time to do that. The usual channels and this House cannot work unless there is a period of reflection and consultation. But the practice of the Government with regard to EEC papers does not enable that consultation and, therefore, the quality of debate and the convenience of the House might thereby be imperilled.
I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend. This position arose only three weeks ago and he was able to resolve it hastily to the mutual satisfaction of everyone concerned. But that was only by good fortune and good luck.
I therefore close the short contribution by urging that we debate these very important matters because I know that

the Lord President has the future of this House, and the proper handling of these matters, at heart.

5.50 p.m.

Mr. Cranley Onslow: If the hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) thinks that that was a short contribution, he must be even more in need of a holiday than he knows. I put that proposition with diffidence because I want to argue that the recess is too long.
One important matter which needs clearing up urgently is the position which has arisen from the incident last night, when the House, although told by Mr. Speaker that it was clearly entitled to have some papers, was unable to proceed without a prolonged wrangle on points of order because it appears that there is no provision in the rules of order as to what happens when the House is denied what it is entitled to. The Chair was put in an invidious position, and the Leader of the House found himself in a difficult situation in which he was unable quickly to resolve the nonsense that had occurred. If the House has an entitlement, it must be an absolute entitlement, and if it is denied its rights there must be an absolute remedy, and that remedy must be enshrined in our proceedings.
If we are to be confronted with shortages of papers arising from a printing dispute, inadvertence or incompetence, or whatever, it is important that the proceedings of the House should cover such an eventuality. I hope that those responsible for these matters will turn their attention urgently to it during the recess so that we do not have any repetition of last night's nonsense. I am sure that the Leader of the House made the right decision, but I am equally sure that it should not have had to be a matter of consultation or discussion. There should be an instant and absolute remedy available to the House in order to defend its rights. I hope that I carry the House with me in that.
I share the wish expressed by other hon. Members for debates on several Early-Day Motions—and I do not exempt from that the Early-Day Motion on the right hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss). That matter should be debated. There are two sides to the question. It


is arguable that if the right hon. Gentleman feels that this place should not be a club, it was wrong and inappropriate for him to speak as if he were the oldest Member and thereby had some authority. If we bestow on him the title "Father of the House", and this is not a club, it is as well that he should not attempt to set himself up as the conscience of the House. It was because of the inappropriateness of his behaviour that I added my name to the Early-Day Motion critical of him. I shall be happy to debate that motion.
I do not lightly add my name to motions, but I am as capable of developing passion as the hon. Member for Newham, South is this afternoon, because there are other matters to which we should turn our attention. One of these is that, broadly speaking, we have too much to talk about in this House against the limit that we are up against in that there are always those who would rather vote than talk. The recess has to be as long as it is because the Government think it more important to keep hon. Members voting whilst they are here than to allow some of us to remain here and talk without voting.
The answer is to have less legislation. I am in favour of that as a part-solution. But Parliament's reputation and standing in the country depend to a large extent not on the number of the votes that we notch up, nor on the midnight hours when we are marching through the Lobbies, but on our success in showing that we are aware of the crises worrying our constituents, talking about them and voicing their anxieties. Our constituents do not necessarily send us here as Lobby fodder. They criticise us when we become Lobby fodder. They criticise us for failure to reflect what is in the mind of the nation.
In this respect, the Government are doing the House a disservice by curtailing a Session which could continue without debates forced to a vote but do a great deal of useful work in enabling a number of subjects to be fully voiced. Unemployment is an obvious example. We need also to call Ministers further to account about the situation that the hospital services are in. That is another example. In my constituency, typically there are mentally handicapped and

mentally ill patients who urgently need hospital accommodation or residential accommodation but cannot get it because the National Health Service is being starved of funds.
There is a crisis in education. It finds its most ludicrous recent manifestation in the decision of the hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Pardoe) to educate his daughter at home so that she can be apprised of current affairs by listening to her father's table talk. That is the sort of thing that happens with the abolition of grammar schools. I say that with some bitterness, because, in the last week, two grammar schools in my constituency have had their death knell finally sounded.
There is a crisis in defence. We can see that in the latest deliberations within the Labour Party. We must get further assurances from the Government about what they intend to do in the continuing crisis in overseas trade. That is a matter of vast concern to this country. There is, in particular, the situation developing from the progressive incursion by Russian and Eastern bloc ships into areas where they have little or no traditional right to expect a share.
There is a particular example in the East African Conference, where already two Eastern bloc allies, Poland and East Germany, have forced their way in to the point where they have 23 per cent. of the trade between this country and East Africa. Now the Russian maritime fleet is trying to elbow its way in as well, undercutting, as an outsider, by 30 per cent. the rates which prevailed within the conference, using a variety of tactics, such as sweet reasonableness and, no doubt, commercial dumping, to assert itself and push its way forward in a manner to which we have become increasingly familiar throughout the world.
I know that Ministers are involved in discussions on this subject. The Under-Secretary of State for Trade is to go to Russia in the autumn after some preliminary discussions have taken place. I hope that he will think it right to give the House some assurance before going that he will stand up for our interests. We have seen the pamphlet "Red Duster versus Red Flag", issued last year. It voiced the anxieties of the General Council of British Shipping. I hope that it will be taken to heart, and that the


Under-Secretary of State for Trade will make it clear to the Soviet authorities that he is prepared to negotiate on a basis of right and reason on both sides, but that if they do not give the appropriate response we shall be willing to resort to the statutory powers enacted within the lifetime of the present Government. That is another important matter to which the House should turn its attention.
In general, if we live, as we do, in an era of hand-to-mouth politics, in which the Government do not know from day to day what sort of deal they must cobble up with someone else in order to get a majority tomorrow, there is all the more reason for Parliament to remain sitting so that hon. Members can monitor the deals and try to find out which compromise is likely to stick and which is likely to come to pieces in the hands of whichever minority party it is that thinks that it has the Prime Minister finally boxed up.
There is a general point which underlies the need for more time for the House —the great difficulty that hon. Members are increasingly finding in succeeding in catching the eye of the Chair on substantive subjects. I make no complaint about the tendency of certain hon. Members to fail to note the passage of time while they are on their feet, but there is a feeling among some of us that that failing affects Privy Councillors particularly, perhaps because they get the opportunity to demonstrate it more often than we do.
It is also true that the eye of the Chair—and I am not being critical of the Chair—appears likely to favour the Government's partners in compromise and that they take up time which ought to be the time of her Majesty's Opposition. The Liberals, who are not now with us, and other minority parties too numerous to mention are taking a totally disproportionate amount of the time which should be available to Her Majesty's Opposition. My hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Raison) has already drawn attention to this.
The situation is made worse by the fact that, if a debate drags, the Government Whips are careful to see that their own time-killers come in and administer a general anaesthetic to the Chamber by making well-chosen 25-minute speeches.

That may be a useful service to the Government Whips, but it is not a useful service to Parliament. I hope that while the Leader of the House is turning his attention to other matters in the recess some person will turn his mind to the possibility that, in future, the length an hon. Member takes when he rises to speak may count against him rather more than the number of times he actually intervenes in separate debates. There is much more to be said for the opportunity for Back Benchers to make five 10-minute speeches in five separate debates than there is for making one 50-minute speech on one debate. Our procedure succeeds in preventing other hon. Members from getting into the debates.
Having said that, I shall not give way nor shall I go on for long. I bid for an extra week to be restored to the House for debate. The motion is tolerable as it stands only if it is designed to clear the way for an October election.

6.1 p.m.

Mr. Greville Janner: I am grateful to the hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow) for curtailing his speech. When he calls for the Session to be protracted I hope he will not plant in the minds of our constituents the thought that we spend the recess at languid ease reclining in deck chairs, enjoying sleep and lack of work. It is true that we sleep a little more, and I hope that we shall spend a little more time with our families. It is right to pay tribute to our wives and children for what they have to put up with as a result of our public lives. It is right to express concern about hon. Members of the House who do not succeed in that direction in the way that we would wish. This is not an easy life, either when the House is sitting or when we are in recess. I believe that the length of the recess is right. I hope that we shall use it to good effect on behalf of our constituents in the way that we use our time here.
One wonders whether an extra week would be of any use. The hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) talked of the need to discuss matters that we have already discussed many times. There would be no point in having another debate on the same subject.
I had hoped that the hon. Member would raise the question of the way in


which the courts have upheld the decision of ACAS and have called upon the Grunwick management to recognise the union and give its workers the right to join the union. The hon. Member made no mention of that.
I had hoped that he would mention the unanimous decision of the House of Lords in the Gouriet case to uphold the right of the Attorney-General to decide whether a case should be brought rather than having a plethora of private prosecutions in an area which is fit only for the criminal law.
There has also been no mention of another important matter. I am ill at ease at the thought that we should leave for three months without discussing the way in which private and public companies and organisations are trading with President Amin. I wonder how much trade will go on publicly and privately before the House resumes. I should like to debate that subject.
The trade comes within three areas. First, there is the area covered by the Crown Agents, a public body which has received heavy subsidies from the Exchequer. We have not been able to debate that subject. The Crown Agents are supplying goods not merely for Ugandan armed forces but for the police. That is admitted in a written reply. The Minister for Overseas Development agreed that 38 trucks and two Land Rovers are awaiting shipment to Uganda. I attempted to raise the matter under Standing Order No. 9 but I was told that it was not proper to do so. This is my only opportunity to bring the attention of the House to this trade.
I asked a further question about what goods were being sent out and about the trade that is being carried on with Uganda and my right hon. Friend declined to answer. She said that detailed information about individual transactions was commercially confidential as between the Crown Agents and their principals. I regard that as a scandal, because the commercial confidentiality of the most illegitimate trade since the dealings with the Nazis should be revealed to the House and the country, particularly when it is carried on by a public body.
I also asked my right hon. Friend how much would be lost if we ceased this

trade. I was told that the Crown Agents could be sued by the Government of Uganda if they were in breach of their agency agreement to ship the vehicles.
I say to the Crown Agents that they should cease this trade forthwith. If President Amin wishes to come to this country and sue in our courts for breach of contract I dare say that there are counter-claims that could be brought and actions that could be willingly joined.
The Crown Agents should have no part in this disgraceful trade.
That is not all. It came to light last week that the same organisation which is supplying our own forces is knowingly supplying goods to the army and air force and police of President Amin at the rate of £80,000 a month. When the head of NAAFI was asked about this he said that it was a matter about which he had some unease. He said that the organisation was run independently and that it supplied the Ugandan forces from Kenya under an arrangement, made long before independence, with the King's African Rifles. That trade is allowed to continue. The matter should be brought to the attention of the House immediately.
The Chairman of NAAFI has said that he was waiting for a directive from the Foreign Office. If he has not been given that directive the Foreign Secretary should say why. He should direct that the supply of goods to the armed forces of this dictator should cease. This dictator is as bad as any other in this century. The fact that he has killed thousands of Africans rather than Europeans does not make the people he has killed any less dead.
There is a vast amount of trade that has not been revealed, which is carried by private organisations, private companies and private set-ups, all of which answer questions by saying that it is none of the House of Commons' business. I suggest that this trade is a disgraceful form of money-making and that those who are prepared to make money knowingly out of selling goods to Amin's armed forces are industrial Draculas, prepared to gain commercial sustenance from the blood of innocent Africans.
One detail came through a few days ago. About 10 days ago a consignment


of Land Rovers manufactured by British Leyland, which is also a public concern to a large extent, was shipped over to Port Sudan to go on overland to Uganda's armed forces via Oman. It was shipped on a Danish vessel and the people concerned knew perfectly well to whom it was going. Panwoods Marine Ltd. was involved. The consignment then went to the forwarding agent, Farlo Forwarding Ltd., a spokesman of which told me that I had no right to knowledge of its business. The spokesman refused to identify himself and said that it was a business matter. He did not see why he should not sell to the Ugandans. I suggested to him that if he had been operating before the war he would not have cared if he had been sending goods to Hitler's army. There is no distinction between that situation and the present one.
We should not be supplying goods to these people. Those concerned well know to whom they are sending goods. The consignment was addressed to the Minister of Defence, P.O. Box 2796, Kampala, Uganda. It went on the Danish vessel "AES". The stevedoring company knew. The people who sold it knew. The forwarding agents can number was 23504. They knew to whom it was going. Abbey Hill Vehicle Services supplied some of the Land Rovers. It has been a long trail of deception, trodden by people who are not anxious that their activities should be known, because they are ashamed of them.
It is a duty of the House to stir up the sand, to reveal the iniquity of that sort of trade. It is only in the House that one can do it without fear, that one can do it openly. It is only here that we can reveal what is going on, whether by the agents or the bodybuilders—Reynolds Boughton Ltd., which has in its hands the vehicles that are still waiting to go to the Crown Agents—or Mr. Neil Honour, of Little Chalfont, on whose land the vehicles are still standing. All those people should now say "The time has come for this scandal to end. We want no part in it." Before the House returns, the unions concerned should say "Our men will not drive these vehicles". I believe that the individuals concerned in the trade are deeply ashamed of it, or they would not be so upset when hon. Members found out about it and sought to reveal it.
There is an iceberg of trade. There arc people who are willing to supply goods to whoever will pay. It is a disgraceful trade. The tip of that iceberg has now been revealed. Let us hope that before the House reassembles my right hon. Friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary will give his directive to NAAFI to cease its trade and that the Crown Agents will say "We are not prepared to make money in this way any more." Let us hope that British Leyland will say "We are prepared to be sued. We shall sell the goods elsewhere.", and that all those in British industry and commerce who are connected in any way with the supply of goods to this dreadful dictator will evoke the shades of Archbishop Luwum, Mrs. Dora Bloch and the 90.000 people who the International Commission of Jurists found had been slaughtered in Uganda, and say "We do not want to soil our hands with this trade any longer."

6.12 p.m.

Mr. William van Straubenzee: I am sure that the whole House understands the deep feelings of the hon. and learned Member for Leicester, West (Mr. Janner) about the matter to which he has just referred, over a wide range of which I suspect he would find wide agreement. But I hope that he will acquit me of any discourtesy if I do not take up that matter but bring the House back for a few minutes to a direct House of Commons matter. Incidentally, I am obliged to the Leader of the House for having been in his place most assiduously throughout the debate.
The matter to which I wish to refer has been mentioned, but not the particular point that I want to raise. I suppose that for most hon. Members the decisions that they had individually to make after Tuesday's debate and all that led up to it will rank in their minds as some of the most unpleasant that they have had to make during their membership of the House, for to sit in a quasi-judicial capacity upon one's colleagues is exceedingly un pleasant.
I very much resent the statements that have sometimes been made, though not, I think, so far in this debate, that decisions were made on the basis of some party consideration. I set clearly upon the record that I was approached by no


party Whip and by nobody acting in my party for a group of any kind. Of course, I consulted hon. Members—as a matter of fact, on both sides of the House. Of course, I took counsel and listened to others. But in the end I came firmly to my own view, and I would justify to anyone the votes that I cast, which are on the record. I very much resent the imputation that there was some kind of conspiracy in the matter. That kind of assertion does no credit to those who make it.
But what I do accept is that what happened on Tuesday has once again thrown the searchlight, or should throw it, upon the way in which the House has decided —I think rightly—that hon. Members' interests outside the House should be recorded. It is this point that I seek to take up with the Leader of the House.
It will be a very poor day for the House when hon. Members are not enabled, if they so desire, to have outside interests. One reason, but by no means the only one, why I hold that view is that as I see it the present and increasing danger is the growth of the party machines against individual Members of the respective parties. For example, there are tendencies, through the sums of money that the House has now thought it right to vote for the leaders of opposition parties in particular, greatly to increase those leaders' patronage. I am against it, but the will of the House may eventually be that substantial sums of public money should be made available to the political parties, which will in effect again substantially increase the patronage of the party leaders concerned.
I am making no reference to individual party leaders. Far less am I making any criticism of any holders of those offices. I am talking in general terms and in terms of principle. If the day comes when all hon. Members are solely and completely dependent upon their parliamentary salaries, their ability to stand up individually against the strength of the party machines will be considerably weakened.
It is for that reason, partly, and for others, that I have always had outside interests. I have always declared them. They are on the Register, as they should be. It is that matter that now causes me concern, because the truth is that, quite rightly, one cannot be a secret mem-

ber of one of the learned professions. One can be looked up in the appropriate records, as I can. I am a company director. One rightly cannot be a director of companies, large or small, secretly, for one can be looked up in the Register. But one can be a representative of an interest. One can be what in America would be called a lobbyist—or one could until recently—without anyone knowing anything about it.
I do not think that there is anything wrong with industry and commerce increasingly equipping themselves with the weapons to understand and be informed about this place, for this place is daily and increasingly involving itself in the commercial and industrial life of the country. The hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing), who has now left the Chamber, corrected himself as a result of a helpful intervention, but the inference was clear in the early part of his speech that it was really only on the Conservative Benches that there should be concern about the matter. Let me say clearly, from personal knowledge, that industry and commerce increasingly equip themselves with, and want, the advice of hon. Members on both sides of the House.
I remember a personal experience, when I was approached by a substantial combine that had recently bought an industrial complex in my constituency. This is going back some years. It asked me very courteously and pleasantly to accept a retainer. I refused it, in considerable anger. I was then told—and the combine was very apologetic—that it was very sorry, but it also operated in another part of the country where its Member of Parliament was, as it happened, a then hon. Member of extreme Left-wing tendencies, who regularly berated the private enterprise system. It had given him a retainer and felt it right to even the matter up by giving me one as well. [HON. MEMBERS: "Name him."] I do not name former hon. Members.
Such an episode can no longer occur —or I hope can no longer occur—because of the Register. And it is the Register of our interests to which I direct my attention, for I believe that it is in grave danger of becoming devalued.
I do not think that sufficient attention has been given to the special report from


the Select Committee on Members' Interests, which reported to the House as long ago as 21st December 1976. I have always been an advocate of this Register and of ensuring that these matters are brought out clearly in the open. However, the last paragraph of that report has not had the attention that it should have had. It states that:
Your Committee are of the opinion that until the House has enforced its original Resolutions and upholds the integrity of the Register, by this or other means, it will diminish Your Committee's standing to publish a further edition. They are not, therefore, prepared to commend such a further Register until the House has expressed a view on the force of its Resolutions".
I have been in correspondence with the Leader of the House on this matter, and he wrote to me on 4th May. The last paragraph of his letter stated:
As to the question of debating the Register I am sure that the House will wish at some stage to return to this matter, perhaps in the wider context of standards of conduct in public life generally, but I am afraid that I cannot promise time in the near future".
It is now proposed that we should reach the end of term without having had that debate. We all know what the difficulty is. It is that there is one right hon. Gentleman, who is known to us all—the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell)—who refuses to obey what I regard as the rules of the House as they now are and to supply the necessary information. I would add, incidentally, that in accordance with the traditions of the House I gave written notice to the right hon. Gentleman that I intended to make this personal reference to him, and I received written confirmation from him.
Because of the right hon. Gentleman's refusal to obey these rules we are apparently hamstrung. I regard it as intolerable that one right hon. Member, however distinguished, should be enabled by his action or lack of action completely to hamstring what the rest of the House by a majority believes to be right. I make clear, so that there should be no misunderstanding, that I suppose that I dislike the right hon. Gentleman's policies as much as any other hon. Member in the House, but if there were one right hon. or hon. Member above any other who I could not believe was capable of wishing to hide some kind of com-
mercial interest it would be the right hon. Member for Down, South.
I must go on to say something that is not easy to express, and I shall try to put it as delicately as possible to the Leader of the House, and without innuendo. It is a fact that the Leader of the House is now in a weak position politically in this matter because, as we all know, he and his colleagues have come to what one might call an arrangement or an understanding with a number of Unionist Members—an arrangement that is related to or hitched to the Speaker's Conference on representation in Northern Ireland, about which I shall say nothing. Therefore, it behoves the Leader of the House to be particularly careful to avoid the slightest suggestion—which I accept is not in his mind—that he is dealing less firmly with the right hon. Member for Down, South for that reason.

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Michael Foot): Although it has been reported in the Press that such an arrangement or understanding has been reached between the Government and representatives of the Unionists, no such understanding in any sense whatever has been reached, and I therefore intervene at once to repudiate any such suggestion.

Mr. van Straubenzee: If that is what the right hon. Gentleman tells me I accept it without question. I think it is fair merely to say that a reading of the speeches of some leading Unionists—not the right hon. Member for Down, South—would lead a reasonable observer to have reasonably supposed that some kind of understanding was in existence. However, be that as it may, this is a House of Commons matter. There is one distinguished right hon. Member, a former Minister, who is refusing to fall in with the wishes of the House in a week in which we have seen, sadly, the departure from the House of one hon. Member. I shall leave it flatly at that. We have had an unhappy debate this week and none of us would ever wish to have to debate again the conduct of any hon. Member.
In this week it seems important that we should do everything we can to restore public confidence in what I believe to be our corporate high standards of behaviour.


One of the mechanisms for doing this is to ensure that any outside interests that any of us may possess are stated openly and clearly. I shall not be prepared to adjourn until I hear the Leader of the House assure us that he intends very soon to move with firmness in this field.

6.26 p.m.

Mr. Robert Hughes: I wish to raise a matter which became admitted public knowledge only at the beginning of this week. Therefore, there has been no opportunity to put down questions, to raise the matter on the Adjournment or to obtain a statement on it from my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary.
The matter concerns an article in the Johannesburg Sunday Times quoting an interview with Mr. Alexander Van Wyk, deputy director of the South African Bureau of State Security, which is commonly known as BOSS. The interview contained the admission that BOSS agents are operating in this country. I should say in fairness that since the publication of that article Mr. Van Wyk has claimed on BBC radio that the story is inaccurate and that he has been misrepresented. It is equally true that the editor of the Johannesburg Sunday Times has also been questioned about Mr. Van Wyk's original statement and his subsequent denial, and the editor has maintained complete belief and faith in the integrity of his reporter, Mr. Hooper, who I understand is a journalist of good repute and reliability.
These admissions are extremely serious and warrant the fullest investigation by the Government. Mr. Van Wyk tended to give he impression in his article that BOSS was a benign organisation concerned simply and solely with the security of South Africa and that it was not much more than an intelligence-gathering operation. In fact, BOSS, as all who have fallen under its control know well, is a secret police organisation that carries out the most harassing methods of interrogation and is feared as an enemy of democracy as part of the South African apartheid régime.
These admissions go even further than saying that agents have been operating in Britain for the past five years. Mr. Van Wyk is reported to have said:

All countries have intelligence services. Most Western countries have under-cover agents here"—
by this he means South Africa—
I know those from America, France, Britain and Germany. Every now and again we get together to discuss our mutual interests.
That is a very interesting admission. Mr. Van Wyk also said that BOSS agents abroad looked after South Africa's external security and stated:
Their job is certainly not to try to overthrow a British Government whether pie like this one or not. There would be no sense in it and anyway we don't have the money. It would mean paying huge sums to people with the influence to do something tangible. Britain is thousands of miles away. If it were Tanzania that was involved it might be a different matter.
Mr. Van Wyk denied that BOSS engaged in criminal activities while engaged in this, but he admitted:
We have entered some places to make photo-copies, but obviously an efficient intelligence service gathers its information without the person involved knowing about it—otherwise there would be no point.
That is also very interesting. Mr. Van Wyk also revealed that BOSS taps telephones in this country. That is certainly a criminal activity. Among the other things that he mentioned, according to a report from Johannesburg, was that BOSS has had secret agents working abroad for the past five years who were trained in the United States and Western Germany. These are very serious matters and one might ask what evidence there is, apart from the Press reports, of BOSS activity in the United Kingdom. Anyone who is active against apartheid, as I am, as Chairman of the Anti-Apartheid Movement, knows that offices are broken into and that the homes of South Africans are raided, but that in each case nothing is stolen and only papers are disturbed. Money is left untouched. That is the kind of harassment or calling card for which BOSS is responsible. It is saying "We know where you are. You may have left South Africa. but we can follow you."
We know of the disruptive attempts to make the work of the Anti-Apartheid Movement extremely difficult by interfering with its petitions against the supply of arms to South Africa and by issuing bogus petitions. It would be surprising if all these things were done by anyone other than those connected with South Africa.
I have specific questions that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House should look into before we rise. West Germany is a member of the EEC. Why should it be involved in the training of South African agents? Some Press reports say that the United States Government are complaining bitterly that the British Government are dragging their feet in their policy over South Africa. Why should the United States be involved in the training of South African agents? Are these agents known to the United Kingdom security service? Are there these cosy little chats about joint policy and objectives and the pooling of information? That is something that should be answered.
We have been constantly assured over the years that there is no contact between South African personnel and our police, security services and defence forces. Strangely enough, only recently a man called Brigadier Visser came on a private holiday from South Africa to Britain but stayed for only one day before returning. I refuse to believe that he was not here to have contacts with Scotland Yard. He said in South Africa that one of his reasons for coming here was to lecture Hendon Police College on crowd control. That man was involved in the Soweto business, in which many people were killed.
I hope that my right hon. Friend will agree that these are very damaging admissions. At least he should give us an undertaking that the South African Ambassador will be summoned to the Foreign Office and told that the matters are so damaging as to require his withdrawal unless the activities cease, never to happen again in the future. A further point should be made to him. It is that we regard members of the Commonwealth as allies and partners, and that any attempt by BOSS security agents to subvert the Government of Tanzania or any country of the Commonwealth would be treated seriously, and that we would protect the country in question.
I want to deal with the thread that has run through a number of speeches concerning Tuesday's debate. In particular I want to refer to Early-Day Motion No. 465 in the names of a number of hon. Members. Those hon. Members have sought through the motion to criticise the Father of the House by

expressing no confidence. They put the motion down knowing that it would appear at a time when it could not be debated and knowing that my right hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss) would have no opportunity to reply to any charges made against him. No charges are specified in the motion. The general charge is that he had the temerity, in the view of those hon. Members, to put down a motion of censure and suspension against one right hon. Member and one hon. Member, both of whom are still in the House. Why pick on the Father of the House? Why not censure all the signatories to the motion, or all those who voted for it?
The curious difference here is that when both Members made their statements on Tuesday and withdrew, a strong plea was made in the House that they should be allowed to return, to get fair play and to be able to listen to what was being said against them. Mr. Speaker agreed to that, and we all welcomed it.
However, when two hon. Members who are signatories to Early-Day Motion No. 465 were in the House a few moments ago and were asked to explain what the motion was about or to withdraw it, they declined to take part. They said that it was not worth bothering about. I believe that a motion of no confidence in any hon. Member, let alone a motion concerning the Father of the House, is an extremely important matter.
The right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Mr. Maudling) said that he hoped that Tuesday had seen the end of the episode as far as he was concerned. If Conservative Members think that by tabling organised motions against the Father of the House—motions which amount to attempts by thuggery to intimidate hon. Members against standing up for what they believe in—they can hope to hear the last of Tuesday's debate, they are making a stick to break their own backs and they will very much regret their cowardice.

6.35 p.m.

Mr. Ian Gow: I wish at the outset to comment on one part of the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. van Straubenzee). I think that it could have been interpreted as meaning that the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr.


Powell), in deciding not to comply with the resolution of the House and to make a declaration of his interests, was refusing to do so in order to bring about the situation in which we find ourselves, namely, that the Select Committee has refused to publish any further reports. I think that my hon. Friend assents with the sense in which I am speaking—

Mr. van Straubenzee: Mr. van Straubenzee indicated assent.

Mr. Gow: However, it is clear that the purpose of the right hon. Member for Down, South—and who am I to seek to defend him or explain his remarks, since he is well able to do that?—in refusing to make a return of his interests is wholly unrelated to any wish to prevent publication of future editions of the register. I say that having heard him explaining on the radio his reasons for refusing to comply with the resolution of the House. I find myself in respectful disagreement with the right hon. Gentleman, although I understand and respect his motives in the matter, which, as we would expect from him, are honourable.
There are two reasons why the House should not adjourn today for the long recess. The first relates to the deeply disturbing situation in the N.W.2 district of London concerning the collection and delivery of letters. I want to reply to a criticism levelled at my hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) because there was some element of consternation on the part of Labour Members that my hon. Friend should seek to raise this issue. Two comments need to be made. When we are sent to this place we come as Members of Parliament as well as representatives of our constituencies. It is perfectly proper for an hon. Member to raise issues of great public interest which affect the operation of the Post Office Act and the whole principle of the monopoly under it, even though the particular incident is outside that hon. Member's constituency.
It is the duty of a Member of Parliament to draw attention to issues such as this which affect legislation that we have passed in this House and legislation that we might pass in the future.
Secondly, only a comparatively small number of hon. Members have constituents who are not affected by this issue.

Many of our constituents wish to write to people living in NW2 or wish to receive letters from that district. They are being gravely inconvenienced and many of them are suffering financial loss.

Mr. Spearing: I made some remarks on this issue earlier. I want to make it absolutely clear that I do not deny the hon. Member the right, or, as he sees it, the duty, to raise this matter. My point in criticising the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) was that he was prepared to take up cudgels on behalf of the NW2 postal district, but that when, earlier in the year, 20 postal districts in East London were in an equally serious situation, he took no interest in the matter.

Mr. Gow: As we are debating whether the House should adjourn for the Summer Recess, as there are yet no problems in E2 and as there is a very real problem in NW2, it does not seem to be in any way unreasonable that my hon. Friend and I should want a reply from the Lord President on this subject before the House rises.
On Monday of this week my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-East (Sir K. Joseph) asked a Private Notice Question of the Secretary of State, and the Secretary of State replied that he was considering whether the Post Office monopoly should be lifted in this case. Indeed, he went further, and said:
The Post Office has put to me the suggestion that the Government should consider revocation".
That is, revocation of the monopoly.
I told the Post Office when it put it to me, that at this stage it is the view of the Government"—
and he added—
the political view of the Government—that to do that would exacerbate the situation."—[Official Report, 25th July 1977; Vol. 936, c. 31.]
I believe that that was a very serious statement, because the Secretary of State was telling us that to remove the monopoly would exacerbate the situation. The Secretary of State does not seem to have understood—my hon. Friend and I seek to impress this upon the Lord President—that the situation has been very gravely exacerbated for those who are living and trading in NW2, and that the prospects of increasing the already fearfully serious level of unemployment if this continued


interruption of the mail goes on is very grave.
I was with my hon. Friend last evening when those who are carrying out trade in NW2 came to the House. It is perfectly clear that unless the dispute is resolved and unless, in the absence of a resolution of the dispute, the Post Office monopoly is lifted, there will be businesses in NW2 which will go bankrupt. I ask the Lord President when he replies to the debate to address his mind very clearly to the very real hardship and anxiety—my right hon. Friend on Monday referred to pension books being held up—involved in this immensely serious situation. It is placing in jeopardy the livelihood, the solvency and the employment of many citizens living only a few miles from the Palace of Westminster.
I turn to another serious situation. I wish to refer to what was said by another Minister on Monday. I do not believe that we ought to go into the Summer Recess without a further statement from the Government about Rhodesia. There was one very disturbing passage in the Secretary of State's answers to supplementary questions. The Secretary of State said this:
If it had been in my power, I would have removed Mr. Smith the day that I took office. I make no secret of that. I do not believe that he has a contribution to make to black majority rule and peace in the country."—[Official Report, 25th July 1977; Vol. 936, c. 42.]
I do not think that the Secretary of State was making a contribution to the important peace initiatives on which he and the American Government are now engaged by talking in those terms about a person with whom he is negotiating and, whether we like it or not, upon whom there will rest a very real responsibility for leading Rhodesia in the coming months.
On Monday the Secretary of State explained, rightly, that though Mr. Ian Smith was not the de jure Prime Minister of Rhodesia, he was the de facto Prime Minister of Rhodesia. It is the Foreign Secretary who has sent his own envoy, Mr. John Graham, to Salisbury to carry out discussions with Mr. Smith. It was very unfortunate that the Secretary of State should talk about Mr. Smith in these terms in the House when these discussions are continuing and when there may

well be a further mission from London to Salisbury.
If we are to try earnestly to seek a solution of the Rhodesian problem, we ought to avoid language of that kind. I hope that the Lord President will tell us that we are not going to have any further language of that kind, but that we need now to operate within the de facto framework in which we find ourselves, and that comments of a personal nature about the personalities involved are not in the best traditions of British diplomacy.
Therefore, I hope that when he replies to the debate the Lord President will address himself to the very serious situation for traders in North London, and will also tell the House that we are to have a higher standard of diplomacy when referring to the Prime Minister of Rhodesia.

6.47 p.m.

Mr. Ted Fletcher: I intervene to draw the attention of the House to an industrial dispute in my constituency between the National Union of Journalists and the proprietors of North of England Newspapers Ltd., which publishes the Northern Echo, the Evening Despatch and the Darlington and Stockton Times. The dispute is on the issue of the closed shop. Over 100 journalists have been on strike for the past eight weeks. Feelings have been running high, and about 40 people have been arrested for incidents arising from picketing outside the premises of the newspaper.
Since the dispute began the Royal Commission on the Press has reported and made certain recommendations on the subject of the closed shop which, in my view, if adopted by the management would lead to a speedy settlement of the dispute. The report sets out what it calls "essential safeguards" in a situation in which there is a closed shop. These safeguards are set out on page 163. I shall not weary the House by reading out the six paragraphs appertaining to these safeguards. The NUJ has agreed to accept every one of them, but to date—

Mr. Jonathan Aitken: I must correct the hon. Member for Darlington (Mr. Fletcher) on a very important point of fact. The NUJ annual delegate meeting, which is the central governing body of the NUJ, specifically


rejected one of the most important of the safeguards. It refused to give journalists the freedom from disciplinary action for anything they might write.

Mr. Fletcher: The information that the hon. Gentleman has is different from mine. I am in contact with the leaders of the strike and I understand that they are prepared to accept the six principles set out in the report. I am certain that if negotiations could commence between the newspaper proprietors and the journalists on these six principles some accommodation could be reached. I am advised that in principle the six recommendations are accepted by the NUJ.

Mr. Aitken: The hon. Gentleman is putting his finger on what is essentially wrong with the NUJ. Any wildcat chapel in the NUJ can and does make pledges and say things that are subsequently dishonoured by the central governing body—the annual delegate meeting. That is specifically why the management in this dispute cannot put any faith in what a bunch of chapel leaders are saying.

Mr. Fletcher: To add to that, many wildcat proprietors can take a particular stand. We know of a Scottish newspaper proprietor who will not allow a trade unionist on his premises. So one cannot pick out a particular type of trade unionist and say that his views represent the view of the majority. Nevertheless, although there may be reservations in some quarters of the NUJ, I have not seen any statement from the Newspaper Proprietors' Association that it is prepared to accept these six safeguards.
Those of us who were involved in the Committee stage of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Amendment) Act 1976 know of the hysterical campaign waged by the newspaper proprietors, led by that jack-of-all-trades, Lord Goodman, against the right of journalists to the restoration of the position that appertained before 1971, that is, the right to struggle for a closed shop. That is all that the Act did. It has long been the policy of the NUJ to strive for a closed shop in its industry.
The argument is put forward that the closed shop would undermine editorial freedom, but this has always seemed to

me to be a phoney argument, because journalists employed by the Daily Mirror, the Daily Express and many other newspapers, not only in Fleet Street but in the provinces, work under closed shop agreements. As far as I know, there have been no complaints from the editors that their editorial freedom has been interfered with in any way. Indeed, the printing staffs of North of England Newspapers Limited are engaged under closed shop agreements. If the rule applies to the printing staffs, there seems to me to be no reason whatever why it should not be applied to the journalists.
The issue of editorial freedom, in my view, is a smokescreen. The real struggle, the real strife, the real antagonism, is about money. The proprietors are concerned that by conceding a closed shop they will add strength to the bargaining power of the NUJ, and the possibility is that they will have to pay higher salaries. The salaries of journalists in Darlington are disgracefully low, compared not only with what is paid in Fleet Street but with what is paid in other provincial centres.
My purpose in raising this problem in our Adjournment debate is to ask my right hon. Friend whether he will give a categorical assurance that he and the Government accept the six principles covering editorial freedom laid down in the Royal Commission's report, and, if they do, whether the Government will convey their views to the proprietors of North of England Newspapers. Will my right hon. Friend say whether it is possible for the Government to intervene to bring the two sides together, so that the problem can be solved?
The printing unions have now decided to support the journalists who are on strike at Darlington, and have suggested that they will take every possible action to support their colleagues who are now on the picket line. This may well mean a disruption of the industry in Darlington, and if it is extended nationally it may have great repercussions on an industry already suffering severe financial problems. No one wishes that to happen.
I therefore hope that my right hon. Friend will give us an assurance that he will do his best to induce the employers to accept the section of the Royal Commission's report to which I have referred,


so that negotiations may commence and the dispute may be amicably settled.

6.54 p.m.

Mr. Geoffrey Pattie: I hope that the House will not adjourn for the Summer Recess until the Secretary of State for Defence has had an opportunity to make a statement to the House about the future of a particular project which is giving rise to considerable concern at the moment in the defence industries.
I refer to a project with a rather arcane title—the 7511 lightweight torpedo project. I have here a copy of a letter which the Minister of State, Ministry of Defence, has sent. Trained observers of this scene can detect the type of phraseology that spells potential cancellation. The letter, which is dated 7th July 1977, says such things as this:
As is done periodically on all our major projects, the 7511 torpedo is currently undergoing a review of the technical progress, time scales and costs, and these factors, together with the results of trials, when available, will be considered carefully before reaching a decision. I recognise the importance of the project to the preservation of jobs at Marconi, but, as I explained when I met members of ASTMS on 8th December last year, while it is our principle to buy British whenever possible, there are many factors in the pocurement decision to take into account. As you know, we must provide the service with the best available equipment we can afford within the required time scale. In order to do this we must need first to consider fully all the various options open to us, including the possibilities for collaboration with our NATO partners and for foreign purchasers.
That sounds fine as far as it goes, but I feel it necessary, in view of what is involved, to say a few words about the history of the matter. The torpedo industry, if I may so describe it, has had a rather fraught history in the years since the war. Twenty years ago a project called the Mark 24 was started by the Admiralty's underwater weapons establishment. This ran into great problems, and in 1969 Marconi Space and Defence Systems Limited was called in and asked to make it good. It managed to do so. At the same time, it was asked whether it would, in effect, become the main Government contractor—in fact, the centre of the future Royal Naval torpedo expertise
To meet this request, Marconi spent over £3 million of its own money. Since that time it has deployed over 500 personnel in building up its capability. The

7511 programme in question was started shortly after that time. It would be foolish to deny that it has had its problems, but these have now been satisfactorily overcome. I understand that the Royal Navy is perfectly satisfied with the progress of the project. Most of the complaints come from the direction of the Treasury. Indeed, it has been said that the Treasury has shot down more Royal Air Force projects than the Luftwaffe ever achieved, and the Treasury now seems to be on its way to sinking more ships and disposing of more torpedoes than the Germans managed to destroy in the last war.
The present state of affairs is causing great concern not only in Marconi Space and Defence Systems but in all the other companies which are sub-contractors to it. It is estimated that at the time when the 7511 enters service, in 1982, about 5,000 people will be employed on the project. Moreover, they are very highly skilled and highly specialised people. This is the really key point of which the. Secretary of State ought to take particular note.
It has taken about seven and a half years for this particular capability and expertise to be developed in this country, virtually from scratch. If we look at an allied and related industry, such as the guided weapons industry, we see that the ability of British industry is second to none any where in the world, but it has taken at least 20 years to develop that capability.
It seems that there is now the possibility of the purchase of an American project, which is the development of something called the Mark 46. To make matters worse, it apparently performs less well than the British project. The 7511 represents a new generation of technology, whereas the Mark 46, I understand, represents an extension of an already considerable life. There is the possibility of a loss of technology in this country which would be involved in a purchase across the foreign exchanges, and an increasing reliance of the Royal Navy on a foreign source. It would be a quite considerable slap in the face for the Marconi company, which has invested over £3 million. Several hundred people came into the industry, having decided to make their careers in it in the belief and understanding that there was a future for them in British underwater technology.
I hope very much indeed that no decision will be taken on this matter and quietly slipped in during the considerable length of the Summer Recess. I express the hope that it will still be possible, even at this late stage, for the Secretary of State to make a statement to the House to allay the considerable fears that exist on this matter.

7.0 p.m.

Mr. Max Madden: I think that many hon. Members regard such debates as this as charades. But I suspect that if the motion were defeated it would leave many hon. Members thunderstruck and extremely unhappy. Indeed, it would cause great grief to many hotel and package tour operators and others who are eagerly awaiting the departure of hon. Members from the House to other places.
I should like to mention three particular matters before we rise for the Summer Recess. At the outset, I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Lord President of the Council for the extremely diligent way in which he has attended throughout the debate.

Mr. Spearing: Throughout this week.

Mr. Madden: Indeed, throughout this week. The interest shown by my right hon. Friend, especially today, is in sharp contradiction to the outrageous allegations made against him in the early hours of this morning by Opposition Members regarding his attitude to the House. I hope that many of those who made such allegations in the early hours of this morning will have reason during the recess to ponder on and to withdraw them.
First, I should like to comment briefly on a subject that I have brought to the attention of the Lord President and of the House on a number of occasions. I refer to the serious problems facing the British textile industry. During the next few months, while the House is in recess, that industry will have cause for grave anxiety because of imports, uncertain world trading conditions and uncertainty about the outcome of the Multi-Fibre Arrangement that lies at the heart of any assured guarantees for the industry over the next four years.
The short-term crisis demands that the Government should give the industry assurances about the extension of the temporary employment subsidy. Some 250,000 workers rely on the subsidy for their employment. A high proportion of that total arc employed in the textile industry. I hope that tonight my right hon. Friend will be able to give an assurance to the industry that TES will continue. It is of great importance to many textile workers and their families to know that before we go into recess.
The situation surrounding the renegotiation of the Multi-Fibre Arrangement is uncertain. Talks collapsed this week. It is clear that the negotiations are being led by the Common Market and that British interests are being represented by a Common Market negotiator. Therefore, we face an extremely grave position. There is pessimism whether an agreement can be reached on which the British industry can face the future with any confidence.
Our industry demands that the conditions that have been laid before this House as the British negotiators' position in those talks are honoured. If we cannot achieve the conditions that the House has agreed to, the industry expects the Government, with or without the support of the Common Market, to take unilateral action to protect it. I understand that the Common Market comes back into being earlier than the House of Commons. The Commission and all the other institutions affecting the Common Market begin their work again in September. I hope that the British Government and their negotiators in those talks will insist on the conditions that we have agreed being honoured and, if they cannot be honoured, will insist upon Britain taking unilateral action at a later date this year.
Secondly, I should like to refer briefly to the matter so ably argued by my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Mr. Fletcher). I refer to the dispute that is going on in his constituency between members of the National Union of Journalists and the proprietors of the North of England Newspapers Ltd.
I declare my interest as a member of the NUJ, and express support for my colleagues who have been in dispute in Darlington during the past few weeks. I believe that the dispute could be


resolved quickly if good will were to prevail on both sides to the same extent as it prevails on the part of the NUJ.
My hon. Friend the Member for Darlington said that the journalists are happy to accept the principles that have been set out in the report of the Royal Commission on the Press. I believe that those principles could form the basis of an agreement that could bring about an early resolution of the dispute. Indeed, it could set the foundation for a much happier atmosphere in the national and provincial Press than has prevailed for some time.
I believe that the Royal Commission report has served the very useful purpose of exposing the fallacies, myths and hysteria that have been associated by hon. Members with the post-entry closed shop policy of the NUJ, which is no different from the policies pursued by many other unions.
I hope that we shall get a statement from the Government tonight stating that they accept the principles set out in the Royal Commission report. I believe that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment is under an obligation, as from March this year, to draw up a Press charter. I think that progress made on that matter will not only help to resolve the Darlington dispute but make sure that there are no further needless disputes of this kind.
I finish this section by commenting briefly on the views of the newspaper proprietors who are involved in the Darlington dispute. They are representative of the last-ditch opposition within the newspaper industry to the acceptance of journalists operating a post-entry closed shop policy. Other enlightened and progressive newspapers have already agreed to these arrangements in recent months. One proprietor in East London has been thrown out of the Newspaper Society for his pains. That is an indication of the reactionary views that prevail within the Newspaper Society.
I certainly hope that we shall have a statement tonight that we are making progress and can reach agreement on these principles, because that would be the beginning of a much happier situation within the newspaper industry.
My last comments concern matters referred to by others of my right hon. and hon. Friends. I should particularly like to follow the remarks made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) and my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton).
I should make my position clear as a member of the Select Committee on Conduct of Members. I was extremely unhappy about the way that the House dealt with the Committee's report on Tuesday evening. It was a travesty. I believe that anybody who read the report objectively could not have come to the conclusion that the House reached on Tuesday. I suggest that that opinion will become widely shared as time goes on and more people read the report. Earlier my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) said that there were matters in the report that the House could not ignore. I believe that there are very important matters in the report that cannot be ignored. The matter is not settled.
The House took note of the Committee's report. The Committee asked that matters that it believed to be of importance should be considered by the usual channels and by the House as a whole. The report is far from dead. The Committee referred to live, topical issues of concern, and, as was said earlier, the House will discharge those matters at its peril.

Mr. van Straubenzee: Would the hon. Member draw upon his experience as a member of the Select Committee to admit that, whatever else may be said, a body of 10 people sitting around a table is a pretty imperfect judicial system and that this is a weakness that has been revealed by the events of Tuesday?

Mr. William Hamilton: The House set it up.

Mr. Madden: I do admit that it has its weaknesses. But the Select Committee members were elected by the House, and the Select Committee was established by the House. The form of the Select Committee's inquiry was known before it was established, and it was agreed by the House. Many people find it extremely difficult to accept that, having had the support of the House on each and every stage of the establishment of this Select


Committee, the House should merely have taken note of the Committee's report. I think that this ill becomes many Conservatives and some hon. Members on this side of the House. The House should have taken to heart the messages coming out of the report.
I draw attention to the rôle in this affair of Mr. Paley-Phillips and the story in the newspapers about Mr. Poulson on 17th June 1973. I quote from page 7 of the report, which says:
Inquiries within New Scotland Yard soon established that this story was based on a bogus document prepared by a Mr. Paley-Phillips, who was a Higher Legal Executive Officer in the Police Solicitor's Department at Inner London Crown Court. There had not been any intention to question these Members, or any grounds for so doing, and Mr. Paley-Phillips was aware of this. By 21 June the truth of the matter was published in the press. Mr. Paley-Phillips was promptly obliged to resign. Your Committee at first found it difficult to understand why Mr. Paley-Phillips was not prosecuted. Possible reasons for this were given in evidence to Your Committee. To pursue this matter, however, would have taken Your Committee outside their terms of reference.
Question No. 50 in our report shows the tasks facing the House. The hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson) asked the former solicitor of the Metropoltian Police:
If the Director is right that there is no offence against the Forgery Act and no other serious offence revealed by this forgery, does that not show a very serious gap in the law?
The reply was:
Yes it possibly does.
I hope that many hon. Members will agree that this exposes a very serious gap in the law. How many hon. Members can justify a situation in which there was a malicious intent to forge a document accusing hon. Members in the most disgraceful way and causing them considerable embarrassment? Then a few days later it was found that it was all a hoax—a hoax that has been dragged up time and time again and held against those hon. Members in a most disgraceful fashion.
In a happier situation perhaps we could have stayed here in order to remedy this. It would have been an extremely useful couple of days' work to plug this gap in the law.
In the introduction to the report on page 5 we read:
On October 19 1976 the Attorney General informed the House 'there are not sufficient

grounds to merit the commencement of any further prosecutions or continued inquiry into the possibility of obtaining further evidence of criminal offences. I have accordingly agreed that the investigation (into the affairs of Mr. Poulson) should now be brought to an end.' (HC Deb 917 c 361). The Prime Minister quoted this statement in his speech to the House on 1 November 1976, recommending the appointment of Your Committee. He reminded the House that in 1972 it had been decided that Parliamentary inquiries should not be started until a statement such as this could be made, lest they should prejudice decisions about possible prosecutions. Your Committee's task, therefore, was precisely defined. It was concerned with the activities of Mr. Poulson only in so far as they affected persons who were, or at the relevant time had been, Members of the House. Further, in view of the Attorney General's statement, the inquiry was not concerned with criminal activities, but with action which might have been contempts of the House, or which might have fallen below the standards the House was entitled to expect of its Members.
Therefore it is very clear that the Select Committee was established only after it was seen that there would be no further prosecutions and that a continued inquiry into the possibility of obtaining further evidence of criminal offences, and after the criminal investigations on these matters, had all been brought to an end. Presumably that statement was made solely about the offences and inquiries into matters relating to the United Kingdom activities of Mr. Poulson. Presumably it did not affect any other matters relating to Mr. Poulson outside the United Kingdom.
These matters were taken up in a book published in 1974 by two excellent journalists entitled "The Story of Reginald Maudling and the Real Estate Fund of America—a Little Pot of Money". The book was written by Michael Gillard, with an introduction by Paul Foot, who is the nephew of the Lord President. The foreword to that book says:
On 18th July 1972, Reginald Maudling, Britain's Home Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister in the Tory Government, resigned from office. The reason he gave at the time was his involvement with John Poulson, the bankrupt architect from Pontefract who was facing investigation by Scotland Yard's Fraud Squad. The unanimous verdict of the Press was that this was a piece of bad luck for Maudling, who had inadvertently strayed into undesirable company while seeking 'a little pot of money for my old age' (his own words) during his time in Opposition. The public, on the basis of the facts available, were persuaded to sympathise with this point of view.
But what Maudling did not mention in his resignation statement was that for almost two


years he had continued as Home Secretary while the Fraud Squad had been looking into another venture in which he had previously been involved. That was the Real Estate Fund of America, an "offshore fund" which crashed in December 1970 owing its investors some £4,000,000.
REFA was the brainchild of Jerome Hoffman, an American who had been run out of New York for a fraudulent mortgage scheme.

Mr. John Wells: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Many hon. Members have been waiting here for a long time to make a brief contribution. The hon. Member has been speaking for nearly 20 minutes and he could have made all these points in his speech in Tuesday's debate. Is his action not an abuse of the custom of the House when other hon. Members wish to speak briefly about the Summer Adjournment?

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine): The hon. Member asks me whether it is proper for long speeches to be made. That is not a point of order. However, I have grave doubts in my mind whether the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Madden) is right in criticising the conduct of an hon. Member of this House, which can be done only on a motion.

Mr. Madden: I have been here since 4 o'clock this afternoon. I have explained that it would not have been in order for me to raise these matters on Tuesday when we were discussing the Select Committee Report because the report was identified and defined as a full inquiry into matters relating to this House as they were affected by the business affairs of Mr. John Poulson. The matters to which I am referring now were outside the terms of reference of the Select Committee inquiry, but I believe that they are urgent and should be brought to the attention of the House and the public before the House adjourns.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: If the hon. Member wishes to criticise the conduct of another hon. Member of this House he can do so only if he puts down a motion.

Mr. William Hamilton: That is not true.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.

Mr. William Hamilton: Surely an hon. Member can be criticised at any time without any kind of motion having been

put down. That is what this place is all about.

Mr. Madden: I shall continue quoting:
REFA was the brainchild of Jerome Hoffman, an American who had been run out of New York for a fraudulent mortgage scheme. Maudling became first President of the company that managed REFA and, although he had resigned, remained a major shareholder until the Fund's collapse. Despite this, little has been said in the Press about Hoffman or REFA, although Maudling's involvement with both companies was considerably more significant than with the Poulson companies. This book puts the record straight. It is the untold story of Reginald Maudling, who nearly became Prime Minister, and Jerome Hoffman, who went to jail for fraud. For the first time it reveals the details of that bizarre and ultimately fateful association and considers the responsibility borne by public figures who lend their names to promote the business schemes of others.
It is extremely important that we should know before the recess whether the Leader of the House could give us an assurance that there is no reason to believe that any right hon. or hon. Member faces any cause or impediment that would prevent him from visiting any overseas country. It is also important for the House to know before the recess whether the Leader of the House has been notified by any authorities of countries outside the United Kingdom that there is any such cause or impediment or that there is any possibility of proceedings being taken against a right hon. or hon. Member that has not been reported hitherto. These matters are important. They cannot be brushed under the parliamentary carpet.

Mr. Peter Tapsell: May inquire whether the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Madden) has followed the invariable practice of the House, and has informed my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Mr. Maudling) of his intention to make this attack today?

Mr. Madden: I follow the practice, as a full-time hon. Member, of being here to attend important debates and I expect the same of other right hon. and hon. Members. [HON. MEMBERS: "Answer."] I should have thought that my answer was explicit in that reply. I should have thought that the action that I have taken had been made clear by what I have said.

Mr. Tapsell: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it not the invariable practice of the House that if an hon. Member intends to launch a personal attack on another right hon. or hon. Member he writes to inform that other right hon. or hon. Member of that in advance? Would it not be wise for us to continue to follow that procedure?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I should be wrong if I indicated that there was any practice other than the one that has been mentioned by the hon. Member for Horn-castle (Mr. Tapsell), I have always understood that it is normal practice to send a note to an hon. Member if there is to be a personal attack on him.

Mr. van Straubenzee: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it not within your recollection, or that of your distinguished predecessor in the Chair, that this issue has already arisen in the debate? I made a personal and critical reference to a right hon. Gentleman. I expressly made it clear that I had written to that right hon. Gentleman and had received a written acknowledgment from him, saying that he had received my reference to the effect that I intended to make a personal reference to him.

Mr. William Hamilton: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. If the Chair accepts that proposition, is it not also important that hon. Members should give notice to other right hon. or hon. Members when tabling hostile Early-Day Motions about them?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: None of these points is a matter over which the Chair has any control.

Mr. Madden: I wish to conclude by quoting someone whom I have never previously quoted. That is the new British Ambassador to Washington. He recently published a book in which he said:
The Government and the governed become more and more alienated from one another".
He was referring to the United Kingdom. He went on:
The governors believe the governed to be irretrievably greedy, feckless, idle and recalcitrant, while the governed believe the governors to be stupid, corrupt, power-crazed and unrepresentative".

I do not agree with the solutions that the new Ambassador to Washington advocated to deal with that malaise. However I agree strongly with that analysis.
The events of Tuesday have done nothing to remove that unhappy situation from our shores. I hope that we shall in future—during the recess and after it—address ourselves to what lies at the heart of our report, which is that as long as hon. Members are allowed to have outside financial interests, a potential conflict of interest between an hon. Member and his outside interests will present a problem. It is a situation in which private commercial interests can have superiority over public interests. That is wrong, and my view is shared by many hon. Members and by the overwhelming majority of the people that we represent in the House.

7.26 p.m.

Mr. John Wells: I shall be as brief as possible. I wish to raise a serious matter concerning the prison in my constituency. I should not normally do that, but I do so because the Prison Officers' Association in Maidstone has indicated to me that it has confidence in neither the Home Office management nor the prison governor.
In my personal experience, the prison governor is a most excellent man and I can make no criticism of him without knowing far more about the matter. However, I am extremely concerned about the Home Office management and, in particular, about the attitude of Lord Harris of Greenwich. The noble Lord has a habit, which is particularly irritating to those of us who live in Kent, of signing his letters "Harris". There is in Kent a much-loved figure who is also called Lord Harris, but who is a very different person from Lord Harris of Greenwich.
The difficulty from which we suffer in dealing with Lord Harris, who is the Minister responsible for prison matters at the Home Office, is that the noble Lord has never had the advantage or disadvantage of being an hon. Member. Therefore he believes every little bit of codswallop that his civil servants dish up to him, and he regurgitates it for the benefit and edification of hon. Members who write to him.
That is why I seek to raise the matter tonight. When I meet prison officers


from the gaol tomorrow morning they will tell me about all sorts of grievances —half of which I know already. The House is about to rise for the recess—unless I can stop it—and because of that I shall have no recourse to any action except writing to Lord Harris of Greenwich. I know as surely as anything that the rubbish that I should get back from him would be pure civil servant-ese containing no merit, no sympathy and no depth of consideration for the point of view of the prison officers, who are themselves civil servants. The prison officers are people of great integrity, doing a most unpleasant, dangerous and difficult job. I therefore urge the Lord President to draw the attention of the Home Secretary to my few short remarks tonight and to urge that the Home Secretary should attend to the complaint that I expect to lay before him during the next few days.

7.30 p.m.

Mr. Christopher Price: I should like to make a plea that the House does not rise until we have had a statement from the Home Secretary on a very important matter—the refusal of the Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis to intervene in the proposed National Front march in Lewisham on 13th August.
I received a letter today from the Commissioner in which he says that he has taken all available factors into account but, after careful consideration, has decided that he cannot on this occasion seek the approval of the Home Secretary for an order to prohibit the march. I understand that under the Public Order Act 1936 the initiative to stop such a march must come from the Commissioner. The local council has to be consulted and the Home Secretary has to give his approval.
The Commissioner's decision is a gross error of judgment. The march will take place in an atmosphere that is extremely tense following the recent arrest of 21 young black men in Lewisham. The march clearly has only one aim—to stir up racial tension in an area where it is very high and where it is very difficult for those who care about public order to keep it in check.
The proposed starting point for the march, which has been agreed by the police, is Clifton Rise in Lewisham. This

is an area where black people live and gather. The route goes right through Lewisham High Street on Saturday afternoon when my constituents want to get on with their shopping in peace.
Responsible people in Lewisham have decided to hold a separate and peaceful march away from the National Front march, but many people in Lewisham and throughout London are so affronted by the decision of the National Front, which is joining the British Union Party and the National Party on this occasion, that there is nothing that I or anyone else can do to prevent a probable serious breakdown in public order in Lewisham on Saturday 13th August.
Two days ago, I went with a fairly high-powered delegation including the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, my right hon. Friend the Member for Deptford (Mr. Silkin), the Minister of State, Department of Health and Social Security, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, East (Mr. Moyle), the Bishop of Southwark, in whose See the march is due to take place, and the Mayor of Lewisham, to plead with Metropolitan Police officers to take into account our experience of what might happen in the town during August before coming to a decision. Within 48 hours I have received a letter saying that they had listened to us but had not taken our advice.
I have mentioned the affront that will be caused to ordinary citizens who want to go about their business in peace and have also referred to the breakdown in public order that is almost certain to occur however much those who care about law and order want to prevent it.
I was moved more than anything by the Bishop of Southwark's memories of the East End in the 1930s. When we went to see the police, the Bishop said that after the 1930s when the Second World War broke out, Church and community leaders were accused of keeping silent and doing nothing while the East End marches went on. The Bishop felt that it was his responsibility not to make the same mistake twice in his lifetime.
I know that the initiative must come from the Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis, but the Home Secretary has one right. He may seek an audience with the Commissioner at any time. I


plead with the Leader of the House to ask the Home Secretary to seek that audience and to request the Commissioner to reconsider his decision.
If the march goes ahead, my colleagues and I will do all that we can to ensure that the citizens of Lewisham obey the law and behave in as responsible a manner as possible, but all the civic leaders in the town are frightened of what may happen. I should not feel happy to start the Summer Recess until the Home Secretary has at least made a statement about the danger and until we have taken the sort of precautions which, if there is a serious breakdown of law and order, we would wish that we had taken while the House was sitting.

7.36 p.m.

Mr. Ivor Stanbrook: The House should not adjourn for the Summer Recess until it has considered a most important matter that deserves urgent attention, namely, the attack made upon our security services by the former Prime Minister the right hon. Member for Huyton (Sir H. Wilson). Given the source of the attack, it must surely warrant the attention of the House and the Government, but we have not yet had any statement from the Government. Are we treating this matter as seriously as it deserves to be treated, considering the source of the attack?
The news of the attack burst upon the world on the front page of the Observer on Sunday 17th July. An article in the names of Colin Smith and Andrew Wilson said:
Evidence with the Observer shows that on two separate occasions M15 (as D15, the counter-intelligence service, is still commonly known) formally advised Wilson that, contrary to their personal declarations, two of his Ministers had connections with Warsaw Pact countries. Both these charges proved to be almost comical cases of mistaken identity.
It went on:
Sir Harold's suspicions were voiced in a long series of meetings with two journalists, Barrie Penrose, 35, and Roger Courtiour, 36, who, at the start of their meetings in May last year, were working under freelance contract for the BBC. They have since made available to the Observer their notes of these meetings and others they had with Sir Harold's political secretary, Lady Falkender.
The article contains a long series of criticisms of MI5 and includes quotes

from the right hon. Member for Huyton. The Daily Express was not slow in getting in on the act. On the following day, an article under the name of Chapman Pincher included a paragraph saying:
some politicians believe that Sir Harold Wilson fought a battle in the last few months of his Premiership against MI5—writes Don Coolican.
One wonders how we should treat these matters. After all, they concern a person of considerable influence and power—a man who wielded almost absolute power within our democratic society while he was Prime Minister. He apparently made the assertions in an attributable briefing and presumably we must take them seriously. Yet some of them seem to take us into the world of Agatha Christie and James Bond.
The Sun said of this affair:
Even the one great genuine conspiracy, Watergate, started off as a series of gigantic dangers, and the conspiracy proper did not start until after the cover-up.
Are we witnessing a British cover-up? Why was the right hon. Gentleman's normal method of dealing with such problems—a Royal Commission—not adopted? That was the course he adopted over the problem he had with the doctors over pay beds; a Royal Commission was set up when this Government had a certain amount of trouble with the lawyers.
This is a problem concerning the most significant and most important institution, in a way, within the State. Allegations have been made by a former Prime Minister and apparently nothing has been done. Surely the present Prime Minister, who is constitutionally responsible for the security services, should make a statement. Surely he should say whether his predecessor was telling the truth and whether his allegations are justified. If they are justified, there must be an inquiry. Of course, it may be that the right hon. Member for Huyton was not speaking very seriously. Perhaps he was sounding off in a fit of pique. These are, however, matters of importance that must be set against the fact that many people still do not know why the right hon. Gentleman deprived us of his services as Prime Minister. There are many questions to be answered. Surely this is a matter that should be dealt with on behalf of the Government before we adjourn. The whole business should be cleared up.

7.42 p.m.

Mr. John Lee: I apologise to the House for not being in the Chamber at the beginning of the debate. I shall be penitentially short. There are two matters that I wish to raise, one of them being an echo of some of my hon. Friends' remarks.
I hope that my right hon. Friend the Lord President will be in a position to reply to the first matter that I wish to raise. I have written to the Ministry concerned in the hope that it will have briefed him so that he will be able to give us a detailed account that may be satisfactory and may enable us to go away in peace, so to speak.
The first matter concerns the long saga of Lonrho. It will be recalled that last year there was a report under Section 165 of the Companies Act that criticised in considerable detail the activities of this remarkable multinational conglomerate. The report especially criticised its sanction-breaking activities and the extravagant financial incontinence that it apparently permitted to take place for the enrichment of its directors, who seem to have been living the life of Reilly at the expense of shareholders' profits and to the detriment of the investment that would otherwise have taken place. That was in July of last year.
In a debate that took place on the Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) Bill certain hon. Members complained of the bullying activities of Lonrho's directors, which I thought amounted to about as near a breach of privilege of the House as one could gel. No doubt it was intended to deter the ventilation of certain matters. I am glad to say that that was not the case. Some of us ventilated them during the debate on the Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) Bill and my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, West (Mr. Sedgemore) raised them again in another debate later in the day. We still do not know the answers.
I understand that certain matters were put before the Director of Public Prosecutions. I want to know if and when we shall get some results. It may be that the evidence does not warrant prosecution in any of the matters that have been brought forward, but the issue cannot be left in abeyance. I hope that my right hon. Friend will be able to say a word

or two that may be of comfort and reassurance to some of us.
My hon. Friends the Members for Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton) and Sowerby (Mr. Madden) referred to last Tuesday's unsatisfactory events. I do not propose to go over those grounds. Whatever may be thought about the judgment of the House in respect of various persons, the finality of that judgment must be accepted. However, after my right hon. Friend has had a well-earned rest, which I am sure he will have in the next few months, I hope that he will brew over the question whether it is time that we had legislation that demanded of hon. Members standards of conduct in relation to pecuniary interests at least as stringent as those that are demanded of local councillors.
I am sure that my right hon. Friend knows the provisions of Section 94 of the Local Government Act 1972, which repeats earlier legislation. It not only debars a councillor from speaking but provides a severe penalty for councillors who vote or speak in a matter in which they have an interest. We know that in local government to make a disclaimer or an avowal of one's interests does not act as a sort of immunisation certificate. Local government demands far more of a local councillor than we demand of hon. Members.
I cannot help thinking that several hon. Members would have been out on their ear long since—not necessarily in respect of the events of this week—if local government conditions had applied in the House. Although their behaviour has been permitted for many years by the usage of the House, it is to my mind quite inexplicable that it is permitted. I hope that my right hon. Friend will be able to give an answer before we depart.

7.47 p.m.

Mr. Robert Hicks: Earlier this week it was announced that unemployment in the United Kingdom had reached the staggering and disturbingly high figure of 1,600,000, representing 6…8 per cent. of those seeking work. What is more, the trends are in an unfavourable direction. When we compare the figure with 12 months ago, or with last month, it is clear that it is increasing. The national trends are also reflected in the West Country. Unemployment in


Cornwall and Devon is getting worse, despite hopes in the far South-West that the worst of the economic crisis had passed.
Cornwall's current unemployment rate is precisely 10 per cent., representing 12…3 male unemployment and 6…3 female unemployment. The figures published earlier this week show that there are local variations. There have been some marginal improvements in the tourist areas, especially at coastal locations, but this is only a temporary respite and the prospects of finding employment in the medium and long term are still bleak.
In spite of local reductions in holiday resort areas, the total number of unemployed in Devon increased by 1,607 to the worrying total of 27,674. Plymouth, a key industrial and commercial centre in the region's economy, showed an increase of over 1,200 people, making a total of 11,685. There were corresponding increases in the associated employment exchange areas in my constituency of Saltash, Gunnislake and Torpoint.
Before the House adjourns for three months we should have a statement from the Government that they are aware of the high level of unemployment in rural areas, especially the far South-West. I say in no facetious manner that we are lumped together in the South-West with areas such as Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and Bristol. Whitehall looks upon the region in that way, with the result that the unemployment rate appears as 7…3 per cent. in the statistics. It is a fact that the further west we go so the lack of job opportunities increases, unemployment levels increase, levels of income decline and the industrial base narrows.
We have had a succession of statements from Ministers on the action that they are taking, especially to deal with youth unemployment. We had a major statement from the Secretary of State for Employment on 29th June in which he announced measures costing a total of £160 million a year. However, I hope that we shall have a statement that will acknowledge the severe situation that exists in the far South-West and in rural areas in general, that the Government measures will be sufficiently flexible and adaptable to take account of our particular requirements and, finally, that we shall get a firm indication that part of the

further sum of £100 million for the building and construction industry will be made available to areas such as those I have described.
As we do not have a wide industrial base in Devon and Cornwall, we are even more dependent than are most regions on the building and construction industry, both for employment and for our overall economic prosperity. Therefore, I urge upon the Lord President to take my observations on board. This is a very serious and very disturbing problem at present in Devon and Cornwall.

7.51 p.m.

Mr. Jonathan Aitken: In common with the hon. Members for Sowerby (Mr. Madden) and Darlington (Mr. Fletcher), I wish very briefly to say that the House should not adjourn until it has given consideration to some of the present difficulties that are being created by the closed shop legislation in journalism.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of the dispute in Darlington, to which I shall turn briefly in a few moments, the fact of the matter is that it is becoming increasingly clear that the Government's legislation which encouraged and facilitated the closed shop in journalism is steadily poisoning the flow of free communications in this country. It is causing divisive bitterness between journalists, serious disputes between unions and managements and industrial disruption in the newspaper industry which, if the present trend continues, will almost certainly lead to title closures and losses of journalists' jobs.
Ever since the present Government so misguidedly offered in their legislation the potential power of controlling access to the Press to one monopoly union, the National Union of Journalists, we have seen continual outbreaks of industrial disturbance and industrial action—at Kettering, at the Press Association and at many other places, and perhaps most disturbingly of all, now in Darlington, where the NUJ strike has been deliberately escalated in a direction which could possibly halt the entire Westminster Press, which owns 65 separately edited newspapers.
In Darlington, the NUJ members struck because they refused to accept the employment of a woman sub-editor, whose only crime was that she preferred


to join not the NUJ but the IOJ. The consequences of the strike have now been made far more serious by the decision of the print unions to back the strikers in their demand for this sub-editor's dismissal.
The most extraordinary aspect of this strike is that it is blatantly political. Contrary to what the hon. Member for Darlington said, it has little or nothing to do with legitimate trade unions demand for better pay and conditions. I say this because the Westminster Press has effectively shot the NUJ's fox by offering the striking journalists a review body which will examine all journalists' wages in order to guarantee that they will not suffer in their wage packets for the lack of a closed shop. This offer completely destroys the theory that only by flexing the increased bargaining power muscle of a closed shop can the NUJ negotiate satisfactory pay and conditions for its members.
As The Sunday Times said in a fine editorial last Sunday, the Westminster Press offer is a sensible and imaginative one, and one which, if it found favour throughout the newspaper industry, could be the solution to the divisiveness of the whole closed shop problem.
But the NUJ, which is my own union—I declare an interest—will have none of this. It never even bothered to consider this proposal seriously. The hon. Member for Darlington was not even good enough to mention it. The NUJ is sticking to its insistence that all journalists must be members of a single monopoly union—the NUJ. Why? Not because of pay and conditions. If it cared about that, the Westminster Press offer would have been accepted or at least seriously negotiated. No, the blunt truth is that in certain NUJ chapels, extremist leaders are forcing industrial action entirely for political reasons. They may be wild men out of control. Certainly they have nothing in common with the official voice of their spokesman, Ken Morgan.
These political strikes are doing a lot of damage to the interests of readers, to the security of employment in the newspaper industry and to members of the IOJ, but possibly also to the NUJ itself, which is split and is tearing itself to pieces.
We must come back to the memory that this in-fighting, with all its disastrous consequences for jobs and titles, would never have been necessary and would never have happened if the right hon. Gentleman, in his previous incarnation as Secretary of State for Employment, and the Government had simply had the sense to preserve the fundamental freedom of a journalist to write for the Press, to whichever of the two trade unions he belongs or even if he belongs to no union.
However, the right hon. Gentleman, as we all remember, was deaf to all entreaties during those long debates on the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act. The right hon. Gentleman paid long panegyrics of praise for the moderation of the NUJ and he poured scorn on the theory that employers might sometimes find it difficult to resist NUJ demands for closed shops. How wrong he was! How sick his optimistic words look now alongside the duress and ruthless pressure that the NUJ and its allies have mounted at Darlington and elsewhere. In those debates the Government failed miserably to hold the ring and to preserve certain basic freedoms.
But there is still time for a rethink. As the hon. Member for Sowerby mentioned, under the legislation the Secretary of State for Employment still has to lay before Parliament a Press charter. If that Press charter is as feeble as the safeguards suggested by the Royal Commission on the Press, we might as well forget about it because those safeguards are quite inadequate, simply because the NUJ, which is the most volatile union in the country, shows time and again that it simply cannot stick to any policy or any of its guarantees.
The time has come, with this long rest for the Government, to do a serious rethink to see whether they can prevent these disastrous disputes and preserve the basic freedom of the Press.

7.57 p.m.

Mr. Francis Pym: My hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow) said some hours ago that one of the problems facing the House is that there is too much to talk about. I rather think that this debate has, in a sense, proved his point. At the end of it, the Leader of the House will have much to answer for, and that at the end


of a Session of a greatly reduced volume of legislation—a situation that he and his right hon. Friend the Patronage Secretary achieved by accident and by inadvertence rather than by design. As a consequence, the House was enabled to debate a great many more matters of general political interest than otherwise would have been the case. We have also prevented ourselves from afflicting and inflicting upon those we seek to represent an excessive volume of legislation. I can only say that I hope that future Governments, of whatever colour, will take due note of what has happened this Session.
A great many points have been made about the House of Commons and matters relating to the House. I do not think this is really an appropriate debate in which to have a discussion about all the various problems that hon. Members have raised in relation to the House, but I should like to mention just one or two of them. There was concern about the procedure in relation to the Select Committee whose report we discussed last Tuesday and whether or not that procedure was appropriate. As I said in the course of the debate on Tuesday, among others, this is a matter that the House of Commons certainly could and should look at.
I certainly go along with those hon. Members who stress the importance of our principle of declaring our interests. I agreed very much with what my hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. van Straubenzee) said on this subject, and I also agreed with what the hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) said about its importance.
Perhaps I may say to the hon. Member for Newham, South that he gave the impression, whether he meant to do so or not, of such purity on the Government side of the House as to come close to the description of a mob given by the Leader of the House last Tuesday. I do not think that the Lord President is alone in the view that he takes about that.

Mr. Spearing: I was trying to correct what might have been a wrong impression during my speech. Does the right hon. Gentleman not agree that any hon. Member on the Government side of the House who becomes involved in remuneration for certain commercial activities

will not entirely get encouragement from his colleagues, whereas it is apparently a virtue on the Conservative side of the House?

Mr. Pym: I do not want to be drawn into a great argument on this now. The only point I was making is that the hon. Gentleman sounded as though he was giving a quite different impression.
Some of us think that the connection between Labour Members and the unions, and the unions and the constituency Labour parties, is not often referred to in this House, and that it is a mistake for each side of the House to suggest that everything is purity on its own side and all offence on the other. It is not like that.
It is regrettable that the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Madden) did not warn my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Mr. Maudling) of the deliberate and calculated personal attack that he decided to make. That is a transgression of the conventions which the hon. Member for Newham, South and others have rightly said are extremely important. It is most regrettable that that did not happen.
I support very much my hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham in what he said about the Register. This is one of the matters on which the Lord President ought to say a word. It is perhaps the most important of those House of Commons matters which ought to be referred to by him now.
My. hon. Friend the Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit) mentioned Prime Minister's Questions. The trouble is that the Prime Minister does not really give proper answers. I am sure that if challenged about that the Prime Minister would say that he was using his best endeavours. I give credit to the Leader of the House for the fact that undoubtedly his best endeavours are better than the best endeavours of the Prime Minister.

Mr. Tebbit: I am not clear in what respect my right hon. Friend meant that. Did he mean it in the sense that he thought the Lord President's answers to parliamentary Questions showed better endeavours than the Prime Minister's or does he think that the Lord President's best endeavours to stop the Bill on direct elections to Europe will prove to be much


better endeavours than those of the Prime Minister to get it passed?

Mr. Pym: In a fit of extreme generosity I was expressing the view that the best endeavours of the Leader of the House in answering Questions were superior to those of the Prime Minister.
I want to say that the procedure governing recess Adjournment debates, as experience today might prove, seems to be rather loose. An enormous range of subjects has been raised which places the Leader of the House, whoever occupies that post, in an extremely difficult position. If he were to cover in any substantial way all the subjects raised, we would not need a Consolidated Fund Bill at all, because all the subjects would have been covered before that began.
This Adjournment debate has given rise to an enormous range of subjects. There are only three on which I should like to speak for a short time. The first concerns the subject raised by the right hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) about the sheriff in Scotland and the actions being taken in respect of that sheriff and the procedure in Parliament to deal with that situation. The right hon. Gentleman appeared to make the point that, as matters now stand, it seems that that sheriff will continue in office until about Christmas time. That does not appear to us to be entirely right and we should like to hear a word about that.
There are two most important matters to which I wish to refer. The first is the postal situation in NW2. This matter was originally raised by my hon. Friends the Members for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) and Eastbourne (Mr. Gow). The point is that a large number of people—private citizens, businesses and companies—are being grievously disadvantaged. To say that they are inconvenienced is greatly to understate the problem. This matter has been going on for some time and there is little prospect of its coming to an end.
I have no doubt that every effort is being made to bring it to an end, but it is continuing, and it is an immensely serious situation which affects citizens who have legitimate grievances. We should like to hear what are the Government's intentions.
The other matter relates to the situation in Rhodesia, which was originally raised by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond). Every hon. Member is concerned about what happens in the southern half of Africa. I think there is obviously a risk —I hope that it does not arise—that the situation there could deteriorate. The Lord President must give an assurance that if it does deteriorate he will not hesitate to recall the House in order to explain to right hon. and hon. Members what has happened.
In respect of those two matters—Rhodesia and the postal situation—we have the possibility of a recall during the course of this recess, which will last for about three months.
I conclude on the general situation in our country and the predicament into which the Government have led our country. I should like to do so by reminding the House of one sentence that was used at the beginning of this Session. I take it from the Gracious Speech. It sounds full of confidence and hope. It reads as follows:
The achievement of our national objectives will be possible only if the inter-related problems of unemployment and industrial performance arc tackled successfully.
Here we are nine months later and there is nothing but distress and failure on all those fronts.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bodmin (Mr. Hicks) referred to unemployment, which is immensely serious. We know that everyone in the Government is no less happy about that. But by their policies they have not dealt properly with inflation, they have allowed unemployment to rise, and industrial performance is basically static. That is a wretched record.
The country would have had an opportunity of pronouncing upon that record were it not for the so-called pact that was entered into with Liberal Members of Parliament back in March. The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland was the only Liberal Member to express doubts about it at the time, and he has expressed them more strongly lately. Many of us feel that his were very wise remarks in relation to the pact.
After all, the only real basis for the pact was in order to allow the Government to negotiate a phase 3. That they have absolutely failed to do, and there is no longer the remotest justification for continuing the pact. Although the right hon. Gentleman has doubts about it, it will at any rate be continued for the time being and, of course, there is an electoral price that will have to be paid in the end.
In the meantime, the Prime Minister is laughing his head off because he is able to stay in office when he ought not to be able to stay in office, in view of the wretched economic performance of this Government.
If we do adjourn tomorrow we shall perhaps come back for a Prorogation and, thereafter, I hope that we shall take the political argument back to where it properly belongs, to the hustings, where we shall allow the British people to say once again which Government they want to have to control the affairs of this country.

8.8 p.m.

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Michael Foot): I thank the right hon. Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Pym) for the words of sympathy that he has expressed to me in having to deal with the huge number of subjects raised in the debate. If I do not cover them all as fully as they ought to be covered, I hope that hon. Members will excuse me, because to do that would mean making a speech of appalling length.
However, I hope that I shall say enough to dissuade the House forcibly from the course which has been prescribed —that we should not depart in a day or so. It will take all my powers of eloquence to do so.
I would say to the right hon. Gentleman that, subject to completing the parliamentary business of both Houses, it is expected that the sitting on 26th October will be a formal one for Prorogation immediately after Prayers and not for the purpose of announcing an immediate General Election as the right hon. Gentleman suggested. As the House knows, the new Session will be opened by the Queen on Thursday 3rd November. To mark Her Majesty's Jubilee Year, it is pro-

posed that the proceedings should be televised.
We shall then proceed to the full Session of that Parliament. The House will fully expect me to set aside the lighthearted comments of the right hon. Gentleman. That Parliament will probably go through its full period and then the people of this country will have the fullest and best opportunity to pronounce their verdict.
I shall take the speeches in the order in which they were delivered. If I make an error I hope that hon. Members will call it to my attention. My hon. Friend the Member for Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton) gave us a forecast of the subject that he intends to raise later. I shall not comment upon that. He also made a comment about some of the judges. I shall not comment on that, in the circumstances in which he raised it. He also commented on clothes. I am grateful to my hon. Friend's reference to my sartorial elegance. I shall pass that on to my wife later tonight. One of the phrases that have always drilled into my mind on the subject is one by Thoreau who said:
beware of all enterprises which require new clothes".
I have always treasured that. It was in my mind when I was appointed, much to my amazement and the country's astonishment, to the Department of Employment. The difficulties have been overcome in the meantime and I am glad that my sartorial habits have been so well noted by one so qualified to pronounce upon them.
My hon. Friend also raised the question of pay negotiations. There are a whole series of important pay negotiations that will be taking place and my hon. Friend gave a list of them. The way in which the negotiations develop is a matter of major importance for the country. I certainly take account of the seriousness and importance of them. I do not think that he can expect me to comment on them.
My hon. Friend also referred to the Salmon Report, as have other Members. He raised the question of what might be the Government's attitude to the recommendations in the report. The Government are still considering their attitude. I agree that we should have a discussion on the report. I have my own doubts


about the recommendations made by Mr. Justice Salmon. I doubt whether his recommendations take full account of the requirements and rights of the House. I should have to have strong evidence to suggest that we should move in the direction that Lord Justice Salmon recommended in his report. I believe that he is a great expert on the law and on the operation of justice in this country. No doubt he is one of our greatest justices but some of our greatest justices might not know what is the position of the House and some might not know what is the history of the House and how it is essential to protect its supremacy in these matters. I still hold strongly to that view.
The main question raised by my hon. Friend was that of the debate that we had earlier this week on the conduct of Members. It would not be right to reopen the question of these matters in this debate. That would mean that the subject would be only partially covered.
Those who have raised this matter have a good excuse for doing so because of Motion No. 465 on the Order Paper. I believe that that motion is disreputable and should never have been tabled. Certainly, those of us who know the Father of the House—and I happen to have known him since 1934 and, therefore, perhaps longer than anyone else here—know that he has a splendid record of service to the House in a whole range of spheres as Minister, Father of the House and Back Bencher. He has given his brains and energies to the House unfailingly over this period. For any hon. Member to have put his name to that motion in criticism of him for having exercised his right to make a speech and to ask for votes upon it is disreputable. I hope that all those who have put their names to it and who have been so sanctimonious in their criticisms will take off their names before the end of the Session. I shall be glad to hear that recommendation made. I believe that his services to the House are such that no hon. Member in any part of the House should have engaged in putting down a motion of that character.

Mr. Tebbit: The Leader of the House has not quite established, in my mind at any rate, why it is not proper for the Father of the House, or indeed any other

hon. Member, to put on the Order Paper or to say in the House things which are critical of other hon. Members, however distinguished they may be. I believe that that is a proper right. I cannot therefore see that it is outside the normally acceptable rights of other hon. Members to place a motion on the Order Paper which is critical of the Father of the House, if that is what they believe.

Mr. Foot: I am not complaining of hon. Members making strong criticisms of other hon. Members. That is what the place is for. What I object to is that a motion of this character should be put down at the end of the Session when it is known that it cannot be debated properly. They could have made their protests during the debate. They could have said then that they objected to what the Father of the House asked of hon. Members. I disagreed with my right hon. Friend's recommendations, but for this motion to be tabled is a most disreputable affair.
I now turn to the speech made by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond). He raised the shipping supply problem in Orkney and Shetland. This is the responsibility of P & O Ferries. That has been the situation for many years. We are confident that the company can make suitable arrangements to cover any such emergency. When one of the company's ships is withdrawn for overhaul a vessel is chartered from the Scottish Transport Group fleet. I shall ensure that the right hon. Gentleman's representations are passed to the Scottish Office.
The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland also raised the question of Rhodesia. I can assure him that if there were a major development in Rhodesia which involved decisions that had to be made by this House, we should recall Parliament according to the normal methods. I recognise that that might be a requirement and that the House would wish it. I give that assurance in response to questions by the right hon. Member for Cambridgeshire and the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland.
The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland talked of guillotines on constitutional Bills. It would be premature to discuss that. Some difficulties arise even if guillotines are mentioned only a few


days before they are brought into operation. To announce a guillotine three and a half months in advance of when it might be introduced would outrage the constitutionalists who are around me. I do not intend to be tempted on that course.
The right hon. Gentleman also referred to the length of holiday versus the legislative load. He is entitled to the view that we should try to lighten that load, and indeed everybody would wish to do so. However, I notice that many who urge a lightening of the load are the very people who also urge at that moment that there is a paricular piece of legislation which they believe to be abso-that there is a particular piece of very good legislation which should be put through.

Mr. Tebbit: The right hon. Gentleman did not get his shipbuilding legislation through.

Mr. Foot: That lesgislation was subjected to a little trouble for a while and we had a little difficulty with the Opposition. However, we eventually carried that legislation through and, despite our difficulties, it was more effective. We intend to resume that course when we come back in November, and also in 1978 and 1979.
I turn to the remarks of the hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit). He raised some query about Prime Minister's Question Time. He noted fairly the fact that, because of the swamping of Questions, some Questions had been transferred by the Prime Minister. The figures go far to show how much care has been taken by the Prime Minister to try to ensure that the new system will work better than did the old system. However, it was an experiment, and we shall take into account the remarks of the hon. Gentleman, who is so great a participator in those sessions. The hon. Gentleman made some suggestions to vary the form of Prime Minister's Question Time. However, the principles laid down by the Prime Minister in his letter to the Procedure Committee still stand and considerable discretion is still to be retained in the hands of the Prime Minister. I do not think that it is possible to deal with the situation solely by laying down rules.
The hon. Member for Chingford said—and I noted his words—"Sometimes I do try to be fair". I think the hon. Gentleman must have been speaking under some strain, but he finally broke down at the end of his remarks and said that he would couch the rest of his speech in a generous frame of mind. That just shows what a fruitful legislative session does for the hon. Gentleman's normally bitter soul. Perhaps that is also the effect of the skill and devastating success scored by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister in the various Prime Minister's Question Times.

Mr. Tebbit: It related more to the effect of the generosity of the Prime Minister in inviting me to share in the seminar with him in the recess. That took me somewhat aback. But if I may be serious for a moment, is it the right hon. Gentleman's opinion that the present arrangement, which expires at the end of this Session, should be renewed? Has he a view how this matter should be discussed?

Mr. Foot: If the matter were to be more generally examined, it would have to be referred again to the Procedure Committee. The matter has already been examined by that Committee, and indeed has been examined on occasion by the whole House. I believe that the best way in which to deal with the matter is to try some experiments. We are more likely to find a solution in that way than by having another Procedure Committee making fresh recommendations, and I believe that that is the way we should proceed. I am sure that all hon. Members, whatever their political views, will acknowledge that the Prime Minister has made a genuine and persistent attempt to assist the House. That should be accepted and acknowledged.
I turn to the points made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross). I hope that he will excuse me if I do not comment on the sheriff incident. I know how careful everybody must be in commenting on judges, even if they are called sheriffs. Therefore, I must be careful in commenting on the subject, and indeed I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock is a greater expert on these matters than I am. I agree with my right


hon. Friend about Early-Day Motion No. 465 and I shall not return to it again.

Mr. Pym: May we take it that the right hon. Gentleman will never again make any comments in any shape or form about judges or sheriffs?

Mr. Foot: The right hon. Gentleman can take it that I shall do what I have done in the past. I shall continue to give history lessons to members of the Conservative Party. One of the troubles of a public school education—and reference has been made to that aspect today—which most right hon. and hon. Members opposite have had to endure, as have some of us on this side of the House—is that those schools do not teach people about the proper history of this country. Every now and again I have to come forward to remind those people of the history of Parliament. It is the House of Commons which has had to establish the rights of trade unionists and it is this House which, time and again, has had to rectify what may have developed in the courts.
That is the history to which I shall constantly draw attention, and when the House resumes in the new Session these are some of the matters that will be brought forward. I intend to repeat what I have said on this subject, and I hope that on future occasions the right hon. Lady the Leader of the Opposition and others will quote more accurately what I have said on these matters. The more accurately they quote it, the better their knowledge of history will become.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock spoke in strong terms about a recent debate. I shall not reopen that subject, but I agree with what was said by my right hon. Friend. I do not think that it would be a sensible course for the House to reopen that question now, but there are some aspects of it that must be dealt with when we meet afresh. One relates to the recommendation of Lord Justice Salmon and what we shall do on those lines. I shall not repeat what I said before.
There is also the question of the Register, to which I shall come in a moment. There are other aspects of the matter, some of which were raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby (Mr. Madden). There are a number of matters with which we have to deal. We

must conclude that the Select Committee proved itself a better way of dealing with this subject than have tribunals which have gone into these matters in earlier years. Select Committees are certainly much more just to individuals. I am not referring to individuals whose conduct is being investigated, but to the many other individuals who are involved.
It was scandalous in some of the previous tribunals, whether they be Lynskey or Vassall, how the form of cross-examination then adopted meant that innocent people who had done nothing wrong found themselves dealt with in a most outrageous way. They found their names smeared all over the newspapers in a way of which the newspapers themselves should be ashamed. It was very harmful to them. We set out to guard against that, and I believe that the Select Committee reported in a way that achieved that end.
If a Select Committee of that character is set up, I do not say that it is necessary for the House to accept its recommendations or report. Of course not. The House has the supreme power, which it exercised during the past week. But if we are to protect this superior system of dealing with these matters and seek unanimous reports to the House, which was what was secured by that Committee, then if that unanimity is broken asunder when the matter comes to the House, the arrangements and conduct of the Select Committees will be put in greater difficulty. That is another aspect that we should consider. Therefore, I am most grateful to my right hon. Friend for raising these questions in the way that he did.
I come to the speech of the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley), who is not present. He and his right hon. Friend the Member for Cambridgeshire and his hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Gow) raised a very important point concerning the postal situation. I have little to add to what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Industry said on this subject a few days ago. A derogation from the Post Office monopoly would be required to provide independent postal services in NW2. It is not relevant to the problem of gaining access to mail trapped in the Cricklewood sorting office. As my right hon. Friend made clear on Monday, a


derogation at this stage could well exacerbate the situation. It would be for the Post Office in the first instance to consider the details of any proposals for alternative services put to it.
During the 1971 postal strike—I am entitled to refer to it, because the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury referred to it, though perhaps in misleading terms—all mail caught in post boxes, sorting offices and so on at the beginning of the strike had to stay there for the duration. No arrangements were made for the collection of such mail. What was said by my hon. Friends who referred to that previous occasion was perfectly relevant.
I understand that the hon. Gentleman made contact with the Department of Industry last night, asking for a meeting on the subject today with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. The ground of his great complaint to the House an hour or so ago was that this request was not granted. Ministers were unable to rearrange their programmes at such short notice to meet the hon. Gentleman's request, but he was offered a meeting with my hon. Friend the Minister of State early next week. I understand that he has not yet taken up that offer. If the hon. Gentleman were to be fully candid with the House, he might have told us that that was proposed, because the impression he left was that he had been treated discourteously and that no proposition had been made for a meeting. If the hon. Gentleman regarded the matter as being of such importance, as indeed it is, he should not have given the impression, which could be misleading, that Ministers had refused to meet him.
My hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing), who raised some questions on that subject which I hope I have covered, also raised the question of the manner, form and timing of some of our motions on EEC matters. I am extremely grateful to him, as the whole House should be, for the way in which he keeps surveillance over these questions. We have a Scrutiny Committee, but my hon. Friend is a one-man Scrutiny Committee all on his own—in some respects as effective as the rest of the Committee put together. I say that not in criticism of the Committee, but in compliment to my hon. Friend.
We shall reconsider the timing. I think that the answer I gave my hon. Friend was strictly correct, but we shall see whether EEC business can be tabled earlier when the occasion permits, when the terms of the motion and any supporting documents are finally available. We shall reconsider whether we can bring forward the time for putting it down, but I cannot give my hon. Friend absolute guarantees, for reasons that I am sure he fully understands.
The hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow) has departed, so perhaps we can treat his speech with all the solemnity it deserves—and I move straight on to the speech of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Leicester, West (Mr. Janner), who has also departed. The question now is whether we should give him equal treatment to that of the hon. Member for Woking. [HON. MEMBERS: "Yes."] That seems to be the unanimous wish of the House. I shall comply with that requirement. The subject that he raised, that of trade with Uganda, is extremely important. I am not giving my hon. and learned Friend any further direct response because it is the wish of the House that I should move on, not because we regard the subject as anything other than extremely important. The Government are watching very carefully how we may make our policies towards Uganda as effective as we can.
I come now to the speech of the hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. van Straubenzee), who touched on the general question of the debate that we had earlier this week and particularly raised the question of the registration of Members' interests. There is a slight misunderstanding by some hon. Members—not, I think, on the part of the hon. Member for Wokingham—about the situation that derives from the motion that was put down on the Order Paper by members of the Select Committee. The fact is that the Register is still sustained and maintained, and anyone who wishes to read it can do so.
The Register has not been abandoned because of the attitude taken by the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell). However, we did have a motion from the Committee on this subject and members of the Committee would clearly like the House to take further steps. We have not yet had a debate on this, and I


certainly agree that it would be right for the House to debate the matter. I would much rather reserve what I wish to say on this subject until we have that debate because I believe that some other questions are involved in the form of the motion that the Select Committee had put down.
I think that the House, for the reasons that I gave in the debate in another connection, has to be very careful about interventions between hon. Members and their constituents. I know that that is a slightly different application of the principle in the case of the right hon. Member for Down, South. I believe that the House has to be careful in that respect. I repudiate once again any suggestion that a pact, understanding or arrangement has been reached between the Government and some representatives of Northern Ireland in the House. That is not the case, and it is quite wrong for anyone to suggest it. I say this not in criticism of the hon. Member for Wokingham but because of the false reports that have appeared in many quarters on this subject.
What the Government have done is to propose, on its merits, that the matter should be referred to a Speaker's Conference. We have consulted all the parties concerned with this and, after consultations with the official Opposition and other parties, we have constituted a Speaker's Conference representing all parties and groups. The Speaker's Conference will be able to look into this subject on its merits and come to a conclusion. It has nothing to do with any arrangement or any deal that we have. It is the proper way to deal with this matter and it has now been accepted in all parts of the House as the proper way of dealing with it.

Mr. Kevin McNamara: Is my right hon. Friend aware that it has not been accepted in all quarters of the House, because it has not been put to a vote in the House?

Mr. Foot: If I have overstated the case, I apologise to my hon. Friend. I should have thought that the representations of those on that Committee would indicate that the Government have done everything in their power to ensure that the representation should be wide and will include people who may perhaps have different views and to ensure that all sec-

tions of the communities of Northern Ireland shall be fairly represented in the way that the matter is looked into. That has been our desire. I believe that when the report comes forward the whole House—my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, Central (Mr. McNamara) is an expert on this subject—will have the chance of examining any recommendations made. I believe that we have gone about this in the proper way.
I have already covered most of the subjects raised by the hon. Member for Eastbourne. He also referred to Rhodesia. I have given an undertaking that I do not accept the criticism of the hon. Member for Eastbourne of what was said by my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary about Mr. Smith. It had to be said and I think it was right that it was said. It was necessary that that view should be made clear.
I come now to the question raised by my hon. Friends the Members for Darlington (Mr. Fletcher), and Sowerby and, in a somewhat different sense, the hon. Member for Thanet, East (Mr. Aitken). That question concerns the closed shop and the strike at Darlington. I shall not pass judgment on the details of the dispute. I hope that a solution to it can be found, but I believe that what was said by my hon. Friends constituted a much more helpful contribution than what was said by the hon. Member for Thanet, East. The hon. Member appears not to understand the situation.
There has been a report by a Royal Commission on the Press. That report has not been produced by those who are associated exclusively with the Labour Party in any sense or solely associated with the NUJ. The report contains recommendations about how closed shops and union membership agreements should be arranged. The report recommends how that can be done so as to protect the freedom of the Press.
I welcome the recommendations by the Royal Commission, all the more since they are almost exactly the propositions that I put forward when I was Secretary of State for Employment and was trying to deal with the situation. The hon. Member for Thanet, East disagreed with me then and now he disagrees with the Royal Commission. He and his hon. and


right hon. Friends suggested throughout the country in newspapers such as The Sunday Times that I was a wicked tyrant who was proposing methods which would interfere with the freedom of the Press. They were, of course, nothing of the sort.
At this point in the controversy the Royal Commission has come forward with conclusions which are almost 100 per cent. in line with what I was saying and almost 100 per cent. against what was said by most of the Conservatives. I remember the debates vividly. I was told at the time that I should wait until the Royal Commission came forward with its impartial and understanding verdict. Now we have that impartial verdict. It is 100 per cent. on my side and the Conservatives are angrier than ever. They want to revoke the Royal Commission.
When I went to Durham I met a deputation from the NUJ of those who were on strike. I made it clear to them that I was not arbitrating in the dispute and that I had no power to do so. I simply listened to what they said and promised to report their views to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment. I am glad to report to the House what they said. It was that they were prepared to accept the conditions for the maintenance and sustaining of the freedom of the Press laid down by the Royal Commission. They said that they were prepared to accept that and that surely on that basis there was a chance of securing a settlement.
That is the record of what they said. Unfortunately, it has not been printed in many of those freedom-loving newspapers. Many of them have hardly managed to get the point across. I stress, however, that the members of the NUJ who are on strike have said that they are prepared to abide by the conditions laid down by the Royal Commission without any of the exceptions suggested by the hon. Member for Thanet, East.
We have to find a solution which meets two objectives. They are to sustain and protect the freedom of the Press—and I am as much in favour of that as anyone in the House—and to protect legitimate trade union and industrial rights for those who work in the newspaper industry.

Those two objectives can be secured. The Royal Commission has said, to its great credit, that that can be done, and it has said how. I agree with it. I am not in charge of drawing up the charter, but I believe that that charter will follow closely the recommendations that are made by the Royal Commission. That is the correct approach.
When we are able to solve the problem on that basis, people will be able to look back on the controversy and say how unwise it was for hon. Members or for eminent editors such as Mr. Evans of The Sunday Times to say that what they wanted was a special law to protect editors and to protect the position of journalists. I have always said that such a special law would not merely prevent proper trade unions rights from being established but would exacerbate the position in the industry and would raise very awkward questions about the rights of editors. I did not believe that that was the way to proceed.

Mr. Aitken: In having his oratorical fun, the Leader of the House has missed the central point. The central point is not just that the Royal Commission's safeguards are thought by some of us to be unsatisfactory—though they are, because they are a compromise with certain principles of freedom. It goes much deeper than that. It is simply that the guarantee of the National Union of Journalists—either its national executive or any one of its chapels—is worthless. It is worthless because the central safeguard of all—No. 4, I think, of the list of six, namely, that a journalist should be immune from being disciplined by his union for something he wrote—has been specifically repudiated by the central governing body—the annual delegate meeting of the NUJ. Therefore, these guarantees are worthless.

Mr. Foot: What the hon. Gentleman is saying—nothing could be more disruptive within the industry—is that because he does not trust the NUJ in any of its operations, therefore no agreement ought to be made with it. That is the only deduction to be made from what he said. He is in a rather awkward position, because he continues to insist—he does it openly—that he is not prepared to accept what the Royal Commission on the Press recommends as a fair way of settling this


problem. I believe that we can settle it on that basis. I believe that neither proprietors nor journalists will be foolish enough to follow his advice.

Mr. Madden: Does the Lord President agree that the hon. Member for Thanet, East (Mr. Aitken), together with many of his colleagues, are adept at selectively offering the view of the NUJ? Would he agree that what the hon. Member for Thanet, East is saying is in direct contradiction to the evidence given to the Royal Commission by a spokesman of the newspaper company with which the hon. Member and his family were once involved before they sold the three newspapers that they owned to a hotel proprietor?

Mr. Foot: I will not go into those latter matters, but I believe that what the Royal Commission on the Press did marks the way in which the question can be solved. I hope that any hon. Members, particularly those connected with the newspaper industry, will be careful before denouncing the recommendations of the Royal Commission on the Press on this matter. I say that especially because the Royal Commission on the Press has also vindicated the view, which I have put forward many times, that our legislation was neutral on this matter. The Royal Commission says so. That is signed not merely by those who happen to be supporters of the party on this side but by the majority report of the Royal Commission. Therefore, I recommend all of those who have been misled by the newspaper editors on the subject to read what is in the Royal Commission's Report.
We are reviewing the project to which the Member for Chertsey and Walton (Mr. Pattie) referred and evaluating the results of the current programme of trials. As my hon. Friend the Minister of State for Defence has already informed the House, we are considering all the options open to us, including the possibility of foreign purchase. We shall certainly take into account the employment and industrial considerations, but we must also take into account financial considerations and the need to get the best value for money for the defence budget.
The hon. Member for Maidstone (Mr. Wells) asked me some questions,

which I promise to answer. I must say that if he puts his questions in as discourteous a manner as he did, I do not see why he should be entitled to answers. If the hon. Gentleman comes here and merely seeks to abuse the Ministers to whom he has been putting the questions, I do not see why we should trouble too much. However, in the generous spirit in which we are all departing, I will give him an answer, or at any rate some advice.
I note what the hon. Gentleman says about the situation in Maidstone Prison. I shall see that his comments are passed on to my right hon. Friend, with all the abuse suitably edited out. It would be of help if the hon. Gentleman would specify, more clearly than he felt able to do in his speech, the points which exercised him on this occasion. If he will give me a letter tomorrow on that subject, I will see that it is passed on to the Home Secretary and that the hon. Gentleman gets an answer as soon as possible.

Mr. Wells: My point, which the right hon. Gentleman seems to have missed completely, is that the prison officers and I are dissatisfied with the Minister responsible. I have already raised this in an Adjournment debate and made no progress and had no comfort. I shall be seeing the prison officers tomorrow morning. I shall write to the Home Secretary tomorrow afternoon, and I hope I shall get an answer from him and not from the unsatisfactory Minister.

Mr. Foot: The hon. Gentleman will have to pursue these matters in the way he thinks best, but if he wanted a courteous answer he might have framed his questions in a more courteous manner.
My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Price) raised an important question and one that was strictly within his rights in an Adjournment debate, that is to say, the National Front march and the provisions being made for it. I shall see that his representations are passed on to the Home Secretary, who is fully aware of the constitutional position of the Police Commissioner and how that must operate in such circumstances.
My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Handsworth (Mr. Lee)


asked whether we could have a fresh debate on Lonrho. I do not know whether we can do that. There are some investigations still going on, which might make it difficult, but I shall certainly see whether there is any possibility of returning to that subject, or any requirement to do so. I have covered my hon. Friend's remarks in some degree in the response that I have made to some other hon. Members.
The hon. Member for Bodmin (Mr. Hicks) raised the extremely important question, both for him and the country, of the very high levels of unemployment in the West country. He quoted the figures for many parts of Cornwall, and also for my native city of Plymouth. Certainly no one can look at them and feel anything but abhorrence at such levels of unemployment. I have not the exact totals here. I am, however, quite willing to guess that in Cornwall especially, in some parts of Devon, and in many other rural areas, the unemployment position, especially among smaller firms, would have been much worse had it not been for the Government's introduction of the temporary employment subsidy. That is one of the best things that the Government have done.
I refer my hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby to the last statement made by the Secretary of State for Employment, in which he referred to the continuation of the temporary employment subsidy. We shall have to see how it can be maintained. As one who had the privilege of introducing that proposition to the House, I believe that the temporary employment subsidy has been invaluable, especially in small pockets of areas in which the unemployment figures are otherwise not quite so deplorable. There are pockets in which individual factories have been able to survive during the recession only because the temporary employment subsidy has been available to them. I am proposing to go to Cornwall myself at the end of next week and will be able then to look into some of these matters. I shall certainly come back no doubt even better informed than I am now, if that were possible. I shall check on the implications of the important questions posed by the hon. Gentleman.
I believe, trust and hope—I am sure that all right hon. and hon. Members share the hope—that brings me to the end. If all my speeches could demolish the arguments of those who vote against the Government as easily as this, what a happier place this would be. We shall have plenty of time ahead to repeat this experiment. We shall be back again at the end of October and the beginning of November to proceed with devolution and other measures for which the House is crying out. We shall seek to introduce a whole series of legislative measures. We shall deal with many of the economic problems mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, Central. We shall go from strength to strength.
Some critical remarks were made about the Lib-Lab arrangements. I should have thought that it would be more tactful and intelligent of the right hon. Member for Cambridgeshire and his hon. Friends to conceal their annoyance on that subject. They could have passed it off in a lighthearted manner, particularly as the right hon. Gentleman is at his lighthearted best on these occasions. But a sombre note came into his voice when he referred to the Lib-Lab arrangement, and all the fury of his invective was unleased on our absent Liberal friends. I was sorry to hear that. I must try to encourage both the right hon. Gentleman and his right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition not to be so furious with the Liberals. It does not help them. They will not ease the situation that way. The more abuse that poured from their lips—I am shocked at any kind of abuse from the Opposition —on the heads of the united absent Liberals, the more my heart was torn.
I hope that the House will accept the motion.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That this House at its rising tomorrow do adjourn till Wednesday 26th October.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE (CONSOLIDATED FUND (APPROPRIATION) BILL)

Ordered,
That, notwithstanding the practice of the House relating to the interval between the various stages of Bills of aids and supplies, more than one stage of the Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) Bill may be proceeded with at this day's sitting.—[Mr. Foot.]

Orders of the Day — CONSOLIDATED FUND (APPROPRIATION) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

Motion made, and Question proposed,

That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Orders of the Day — RHODESIA

8.57 p.m.

Mr. Frank Hooley: The matter that I wish to bring before the House tonight is an ugly and sombre business, but I think that it should be debated before the House departs for the long recess.
This House still has constitutional responsibility for Rhodesia. The Smith regime there is illegal. It is recognised by no one, not even by its friends in South Africa. It has been made clear in this House and in the courts of this country that the regime has no lawful authority to do anything at all. This position has been endorsed by the international community, by way of numerous resolutions of the United Nations. It is striking that of the 149 members of the United Nations, not one has accorded any kind of formal recognition to the Smith regime.
From the time of UDI until 1968 the regime was ruthless in seizing and imprisoning, without trial, those whom it regarded as its political opponents and in exercising its power against anyone who opposed its views. But until 1968 it did not proceed to the ultimate act of executing anyone under the law of the country. It did not carry out any death sentence until 1968.
In March 1968, in defiance of international opinion and explicit warnings by Her Majesty's Government that any execution would be tantamount to murder, and expressly ignoring the Royal Prerogative of Mercy, the regime hanged five Africans. It was a matter that was regarded with outrage by the international community, and it was a factor in the imposition of sanctions by the United Nations against the regime. Clearly it was an act of calculated brutality, designed to terrorise opponents of the regime into submission.
At that time the regime did not even have the excuse that the country was being threatened by any kind of guerrilla warfare. Such warfare had not broken out in 1968; therefore, there was not even that excuse—if it can be called an excuse —for this particular piece of barbarity, which ignored international opinion and explicitly rejected the Royal Prerogative, despite the fact that the regime claimed loyalty to the Crown.
From 1968 to April 1975—I shall explain the significance of that date later —there were, unfortunately, regular executions. It has been said that about 35 Zimbabweans were executed during that period. But on 1st December 1975 I was told by the then Minister of State, in answer to a parliamentary Question that I tabled, that 60 people had been executed in Rhodesia between UDI and April 1975. From the time the Smith regime decided to proceed unlawfully and without due authority to the hanging of political opponents, it continued with a series of executions until April 1975.
Over that period there developed an armed liberation struggle by those who had been deprived of their political rights and franchise, and who were not allowed to exercise normal political activities within their own country. As a result the regime enacted what purported to be legislation to provide the death penalty for a wide range of offences. A number of so-called Acts were passed—the Law and Order Maintenance Acts—which were designed to make it more and more difficult for any person to oppose the régime in any way at all. Not only did they make it more difficult; they introduced the death penalty for certain so-called offences.
Act No. 50, passed in 1967, proposed a mandatory death penalty—in other words, the court had no option but to pass the death penalty if a person were convicted —for those who were found to be guilty of possessing arms of war. Of course this was a deadly threat to the African population.
Any white person could obtain a licence or permission to carry a gun, a pistol or a weapon without any difficulty at all. But under this legislation a Zimbabwean who was caught, accidentally or however, merely in possession of a pistol or a rifle,


or presumably, even in some circumstances, a knife or an axe, could be convicted of possessing arms of war, and the death penalty could be imposed for this offence.
The death penalty or 30 years' imprisonment could be imposed for what the régime described, in somewhat sweeping terms, as acts of terrorism or sabotage. Offences were created by the régime upon conviction of which a person could suffer the death penalty without having been involved in any kind of violence against another.
Act 12 under the Law and Order Maintenance Act 1912 provided death or life imprisonment as the penalty for attacks on property or vehicles, and it provided that the penalty could be imposed whether or not the vehicles had been occupied at the time of the offence. There was a bizarre situation, in which a person convicted of having damaged a lorry or a private vehicle could be sentenced to death under this law.
Act 44, 1973, provided death or life imprisonment as the penalty for undergoing guerrilla training or recruiting, for having encouraged others to join in guerrilla activity, for terrorism, for sabotage, or for assisting guerrillas. It should be noted that under some of those headings there was no need for the courts to find that the accused had been guilty of actually injuring, much less killing, anyone during the activity in which he had been engaged. The death penalty could be imposed even for acts of sabotage to property and for what was vaguely caller "assisting guerrillas".
Act 43, 1974, provided a mandatory death penalty. If the court convicted someone of an alleged crime it had no option but to impose the death penalty. It could be imposed for what was described as "recruiting for guerrilla training". Again, the convicted person need not have caused harm or injury to anybody; none the less, he could be sentenced to death under these so-called laws.
Another particularly grim aspect of this so-called legislation—enacted by a régime that had no authority to do so—was that the accused had to prove his innocence. There was no presumption of innocence. The accused had to establish to the satis-

faction of the court that he was innocent of the charges against him.
In December 1974, as is well known, there were abortive negotiations between the régime and some of the national leaders which led to what was called the Lusaka agreement—although it is dubious whether there was any real intention of agreement at all on the part of Smith. It was generally held that the execution of political prisoners would cease in the light of the undertakings that had been given by Smith to national leaders. In other words, in order to begin a process of recreating an atmosphere conducive to a reasonable settlement of the Rhodesia problem, assurances were given by the régime that the executions of Africans in Zimbabwe would not be carried out. Indeed, one would have thought that it would be a matter of common sense that if Smith and his colleagues had been serious about the negotiations and progress towards a peaceful and constitutional settlement in Rhodesia they would, in any case, have ceased this barbaric practice, for which they had no lawful authority.
The Lusaka talks took place at the end of 1974. In January and February 1975 two Africans were hanged for "assisting terrorists". Three more Africans, Katsara Momo, Alfred Changiri and John Matsiri, were hanged for so-called terrorism and the possession of arms. That happened during the first two months of 1975, hard on the Lusaka talks and at a time when there was at least some hope that a process of negotiation that might conceivably lead to constitutional rule had been set in train.
Nevertheless, the régime continued to hang people in Zimbabwe. On 22nd April 1975, Lardner-Burke, the so-called Minister for Law and Order, stated that the Rhodesian authorities would withhold all details of further executions, as the issue had become "an emotive one". It appears that even the Smith régime was becoming sensitive to the barbarity of this practice and the rest of the world's view on what was happening. It was not willing to desist from the hanging of political opponents and others, but was too ashamed to continue to announce publicly when the executions were to take place.
Lardner-Burke said that when a death sentence was passed and an appeal was


turned down it should be presumed that the prisoner would be executed. The grisly epitaph of many Africans in Zimbabwe must be "sentenced, presumed hanged". Mr. Sithole later protested violently that some prisoners had been hanged at one hour's notice and had not even been given the opportunity to see relatives or friends before the sentence was carried out.
In April 1975, four Africans were sentenced to death after being charged with recruiting freedom fighters. It is interesting to note what sort of people they were. Maurice Nyagumbo was a leader of the ANC and was involved in the Lusaka talks. One might presume that he would be expected, even by the Smith régime, to be a potential political leader in the country.
Another, Movan Mahachi, was manager of an African farming co-operative in Inyanga and had done a great deal for Africans in that area. John Mutasa was a farmer associated with the multi-racial Cold Comfort Farm. Percy M'kudu was a former African Member of Parliament and a prominent member of the Anglican Church in Rhodesia. That is the type of person that the Smith régime was sentencing to death and executing in secret.
In August 1975, Benson Neube and Robbie Nyambabun were sentenced to death for recruiting youths for terrorist training. The charge was not that they had committed any violence or had killed or injured anyone, but simply that they were recruiting colleagues for the liberation struggle.
In October 1975, 65-year-old John Hlengani was sentenced to death for taking three nephews across the border into Mozambique. The régime claimed that his object was to allow them to join the liberation army. He claimed that they wanted to find work in Mozambique. The charge was not that he had committed any act of violence or that he had attacked or injured anyone, but simply that he had escorted the three boys across the border. For that, he was sentenced to death.
It is believed that during 1975, a total of 22 people were executed by the régime, although we cannot be certain of the number of executions because the practice of publishing the date and time of

hangings had ceased following the Lardner-Burke pronouncement.
In 1976, the régime developed a system of special mobile corps that went to certain areas, held trials in camera and sentenced to death those who were presumed to be involved in the guerrilla war in some way and even some Africans who were not involved at all.
In March 1976 an African named Luckson Tiniboyi was sentenced to death for killing a soldier flying in a helicopter. There was no evidence that Tiniboyi had fired a shot, but he was convicted on the legal doctrine that I understand is called "common purpose". That is because he had been caught where guerrilla forces were operating. It was there that the incident happened. He was assumed to be guilty and was duly condemned to death. In July 1976 Stephen Chapangu was sentenced to death for bearing arms of war. No evidence was produced that he had killed anyone.
It has been estimated that about 64 Africans were executed in 1976. In October 1976 a list of the names of 58 Africans known to be under sentence of death was published by organisations in this country, based on information that they had secured in Rhodesia.
In January 1977 eight supporters of Bishop Muzorewa of the United African National Council were hanged in Salisbury. This led Bishop Muzorewa to protest. He said:
To our utter dismay the next thing we heard was the statement that the eight men had been executed. In the light of this tragic situation, we seriously wonder whether Mr. Smith is in control of the people whom he claims to lead. Also this amply explains why practically everything the Rhodesian Front has done since September 24th contradicts and/or undermines the alleged acceptance of the principle of majority rule.
Bishop Muzorewa is now being put forward by Smith as the man with whom he purports to be prepared to do some sort of deal. The most recent example of leading men being sentenced to death is Robert Bhebe and Pinos Zehama, who were sentenced in March for recruiting for guerrilla activities. It is believed, although I cannot say this categorically, that Bhebe was executed last week. He had been released from detention, having been held for some time by the Smith régime. He had been released to attend Lusaka talks. He must, therefore, have


been regarded as one of the possible up-and-coming leaders of his country against the day when constitutional rule is restored in Rhodesia.
The effect of this process of hangings and executions has led to the Secretary-General of the Commonwealth to make an appeal to the International Committee of the Red Cross. On 15th July Mr. Ramphal wrote to the President of the International Committee of the Red Cross as follows:
The continuing cold-blooded execution of political opponents jeopardises beyond measure the prospects of a constructive peace and is an incalculable threat to race relations not only in Zimbabwe but beyond.
Mr. Ramphal went on properly to recall the deep concern expressed by the Commonwealth Heads of Government over the increasing danger to international peace arising from the armed struggle in Rhodesia. There is no doubt that there is a war in progress in Rhodesia. Curiously the Smith régime admits as much itself. In the Rhodesian Sunday Mail in March of this year it was stated:
The terrorist war has now become a war in the fullest sense and is being treated as such by the Government.
It follows from that that if people are captured or held in the course of the fighting they should not under any circumstances be hanged as if they are common criminals.
We know that in a war of this kind, violence and atrocities, perhaps on both sides, are bound to occur. Many of us have warned for years, in the House and elsewhere, that the consequence of the intransigence of the Smith régime—the refusal to progress to majority rule and the refusal to grant normal political rights and activities to the nineteen-twentieths of the population of Rhodesia—would be a racial conflict, and this has now broken out.
There is a war, and the Smith régime accepts as much. In those circumstances

the British Government should make it clear and, indeed, the international community should make it clear, that they will not tolerate the hanging—the judicial murder—of Africans who may be captured or may even be seized by the forces of the illegal régime in the course of that conflict. I think that it should be stated quite clearly that in the course of armed conflict, persons who may be taken prisoner should be accorded at least the basic rights that are normally observed in the course of armed conflict, and that the hangings must cease.
The question has been put: what, in fact, can the British Government do about it? We know that on a number of occasions the Foreign Secretary and Her Majesty's Government have protested against these hangings. So far those protests seem to have been of no avail. It is reasonable now that Her Majesty's Government should invoke the authority of the Security Council and demand a resolution by that Council which would declare quite clearly that if the process of judicial murder and hanging of prisoners by the Smith régime goes on in the future, from this moment on, the persons concerned will be put on trial for war crimes, that they will be treated as indulging in criminal activities, and that we shall seek the authority of the world community for saying quite clearly that when a constitutional authority has been restored in Rhodesia, this country, which has the constitutional authority, with the explicit support of the international community, will be prepared and entitled to proceed against those in Rhodesia, both high and low, who have carried out these brutal executions over the years.
We should make clear that we intend to do this, and it should be made absolutely clear to the Smith régime, so that those who, from now on, indulge in this practice of hanging prisoners and political opponents will know that they do so at their own peril.

9.23 p.m.

Mr. Patrick Wall: No one knows better than the occupant of the Chair that there are two sides to every story. I want to ask the question why these trials and executions, to which the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Mr. Hooley) has referred, were necessary. Indeed, the hon. Member gave the House the answer. Rhodesia is at war.
The hon. Member knows as well as I do that in similar campaigns in the immediate colonial past, the British Government, be they of his party or mine, have adopted much the same emergency measures as are being adopted in Rhodesia today. I refer to the Mau Mau, the rebellion in Cyprus, Aden, and so on. It may well be that now we are confronted with the same form of revolutionary activity much nearer home indeed in this country—in Ulster. We do not take similar action. That is probably because we have learned to be, one might say, more civilised. Equally, one might say that it is a great mistake to create martyrs.
But we are not talking about Europe. This is the point that I want to emphasise. The double standards that are so often displayed in the House of Commons are due to the fact that hon. Members compare what is happening in Africa with what is happening in Europe, and that is not a comparison of like with like. The hon. Member was dealing with Africa, and not Europe. In Africa we have a different set of standards. He will know what is happening in Ethiopia today, where the 150 people who form the Government have now murdered about 50 per cent. of that Government. He will know what is happening in Uganda, and in Guinea under President Sekou Touré. These are all, equally, murders. But those concerned do not have the benefit of a trial beforehand. People are murdered without any form of trial. At least the hon. Member admits that people have trials in Rhodesia.
Some believe that one man, one vote in Rhodesia will bring democracy. I do not want to deal with political matters, but I would merely say that if we look at the recent history of Africa we shall see that one man, one vote did not bring democracy. In fact, of the 48 members

of the OAU, 15 now have military Governments and 30 have one-party States. That leaves only three democracies of an approximate standard that we could call democracy in this House.
I would also remind the House that over the past 10 years there have been well over 100 revolutions, coups d'états or attempted coups d'états in the African independent States. The great panacea of one man, one vote has not brought democracy to the States of Africa.
Unlike other African countries, these men who have been executed have faced a fair trial. Why have they been brought to trial? Because of their guerrilla activities. The guerrilla activity in Rhodesia falls into two phases. From 1966 to 1970 there were well-trained guerrillas—trained in China, the Soviet Union and Cuba—who during that time made five major incursions into Rhodesia from Zambia. All were defeated. There was then a pause for a number of years and the second phase that we are now in started in December 1972.
Subversion occurred over a fairly wide area of North-East Rhodesia. The Rhodesian army mounted Operation Hurricane in order to deal with the rebellion and the incursion from Mozambique. They dealt with it extremely successfully until the time of Portuguese withdrawal and the Lusaka talks, which gave the guerrillas time to reorganise and re-equip.
In 1976 Mozambique virtually declared war on Rhodesia. Operation Thrasher was mounted, based on Umtali, in January 1976 and Operation Repulse, based on Fort Victoria, in May 1976. These were to protect Rhodesia from incursions from Mozambique which were basically Mashona or ZANU operations. They were reasonably successful. Since then, a further operation area has had to be created to cover Matabeleland when ZAPU recently started operating from Zambia.
The House should remember that Rhodesia is at war on three of her four borders and that in wars unpleasant things happen, even, as we know to our own cost, in our country in Ulster.
I believe that the Rhodesian Army is well disciplined and that it is probably


the finest anti-terrorist army in the world today. It is an honourable army. It is two-thirds black. That is a point which the House might remember. It has fought terrorism for well over 10 years with great success.
I read recently that the Government were toying with the idea—more than toying; it was one of their conditions—of amalgamating the Rhodesian Army with the terrorist guerrillas. That is rather like expecting the Guards to mix with the Hitler Youth. If the Government proceed on these lines, they will not stand very much chance of achieving a settlement.
The army in Rhodesia is a constitutional army. It will uphold the elected Head of State. I understand that the heads of the army have been to see Bishop Muzorewa and have told him that if he is elected Prime Minister or President of Rhodesia they will serve him just as they are serving the President and Mr. Smith at the moment. As the army is the only stabilising force in Rhodesia today, any disruption would ensure the inevitability of a civil war between Mashona and Matabele. I recommend that the Minister reads the excellent article on this subject by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Hastings), which appeared in the Daily Telegraph today.
I turn from the army to the guerrillas themselves. The hon. Member for Heeley read out a list of those who have been tried and executed. I could spend a similar time recounting to the House the guerrilla atrocities that have taken place over the last five or 10 years. I shall not do so. All I will do is read a paragraph from a report by a clergyman of the Anglican Church in Rhodesia. Speaking of the guerrillas he said
Another African school supervisor was burnt to death with paraffin while his murderers danced to the tune of a radiogram. Of the beatings from which so many black tribes-people have died, an African priest said to the present writer: It would be kind if the terrorists killed their victims.
The tape today says that two buses of school children have been blown up. The report continues:

The hundreds of cases of murder, torture, maiming and rape defy any attempt at description. Pliers are used to cut off ears, noses, lips: wives are compelled to roast and eat the severed flesh. African children driving an ox-cart have been blown to bits by a landmine—the fate of the passengers of dozens of buses in the tribal areas. A black policeman and a black district assistant were stripped naked, as were some nearby women, forced to have intercourse with them, and then beaten and shot.
Is it surprising that the silent African majority is very silent indeed? If race relations in Rhodesia were not good the whites would have been swamped long ago: they are outnumbered more than twenty to one.
That is the story of the appalling activities in Rhodesia today. I am prepared to admit that although the Rhodesian army is well disciplined there may have been cases in which the army has perpetrated excesses, as have the British and other armies in such circumstances.
This terrorism is against their own people. It is the ZAPU guerrillas attacking the Mashona and the ZANU guerrillas attacking the Matabele. To be fair, there are few atrocities committed on the Matabele by the ZAPU. Their policy is to train, equip and hide their weapons to prepare for the real battle to defeat the Mashona dogs whom they have hated and despised over the centuries. What matters is that law and order must be maintained by the courts, the police and the army.
We must not forget the murders that have taken place amongst the guerrillas' own people. Herbert Chitepo and Jason Moyo were the victims of internecine warfare. That is what is preventing the armies of ZANU and ZAPU from joining together to attack the real enemy—the white man and Mr. Smith's Administration. If law and order break down, civil war between the Mashona and the Matabele will develop. That is why Nkomo of ZAPU is building up his army to match Mugabe's army. That is probably why Nkomo is in Cuba today to recruit more people to his side.
We all deplore violence and killing, but we all know, since we have been through it, that war is war. There is now only one hope. Time and time again opportunities have been missed. Both Mr. Smith and we are to blame. We must all share the blame. The only hope now is an internal settlement which will bring majority rule in the next 12 months. I


believe that that is Mr. Smith's intention. I hope that the West will not sabotage it. If this comes to fruition—it is a big "if"—and it is then sabotaged by Anglo-American efforts, the blood of many innocent people will be on the hands of the British and American Governments.

9.35 p.m.

Mr. John Cope: I do not wish to make a long speech because I know that the night will be a long one for some, at least.
I do not disagree with everything said by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Mr. Hooley), but his deeply-held convictions led him to put one side only of the case and to be unselective in what he said. He glossed over some of the factual background referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice (Mr. Wall) and some of which I had the opportunity to see in Rhodesia.
I appreciate the fact that the hon. Gentleman and others view the death penalty as unacceptable in any circumstances, in any country, even for those who commit murder and atrocities for political ends. Everybody respects that view, but that is not the view of many in this House. Indeed, it is not the view of many in this country, and it is not the principle upon which many countries on either side of the ideological divide operate.
I wish to point to the background to those hangings. I think, as do the majority of whites whom I met in Rhodesia, that the struggle there is no longer primarily about keeping white supremacy. It is about the future shape of the inevitable black Government. It is about the economic future of the country, whether the whites will stay and whether the Africans will suffer in a monumental bloodbath. That is what it is all about.
The war in Rhodesia is not mainly a war of white versus black. There are three points to be made to back up that statement. In the first place, there are many in Mr. Smith's security forces who are black Africans. Half the army, two-thirds of the police and nearly all the guard force are African. There are more black men fighting in Rhodesia in the army, police and guard force than there are fighting against the security forces inside the Rhodesian borders.
Secondly, the terrorist and guerrilla forces attack as many black people in Rhodesia as they do white people in that country. They kill, maim and mutilate black civilians in the tribal areas. Much of the backing in the form of arms and training for the terrorist guerrillas comes from white sources, from the Communist bloc. We saw some of the arms that were captured. They were almost universally Communist arms from China, Russia and Eastern Europe. White people are involved on both sides of the dispute, as are African people of Rhodesia, or Zimbabwe, whatever phrase one prefers to use.
The point that was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice about the targets of some of these attacks is relevant in another way. The lives of many Africans, particularly in the tribal areas, which are remote, are very much affected by the terrorism and the events that are taking place. The only people who can give major protection to those Africans in the tribal areas are the present security forces, who are mainly African. But certainly that protection is provided by the present security forces and the judicial set-up. Whether we like it or not, those are the only people who can provide strong protection of any sort for the Africans.
At the time of UDI, 12 years ago, the then Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Huyton (Sir H. Wilson), addressed himself to this point. In the debate the day after UDI was declared, on 12th November 1965, he said about the position of the judges:
The Governor has already told the judges, with our approval, that it is the judges' duty to carry on, and I understand that they are going to carry on.
He went on in the next column to make this wider comment:
I think the House would agree that it is the duty of public servants to remain at their posts, and especially to maintain essential public services and public order."—[Official Report, 12th November 1965; Vol. 720, c. 630–31.]
We appreciate that the right hon. Gentleman thought that the whole matter would be sorted out in a few weeks—that the illegal régime would not last very long—but he laid down there the basic principle that the existing judges —under the existing system of law—and the security forces should do their best


to continue to maintain public order, in spite of the existence of the illegal régime, and that is what they continued to do. The legal basis, particularly after all this length of time since UDI, may be unsatisfactory, but that does not entitle us to ignore the facts or the basis upon which the system operates.
In The Times and other newspapers last Saturday there was another example of what is going on. We read of 27 African civilians, 17 of them children, being beaten and burnt to death in the tribal area at Rushinga, in North-East Rhodesia. I do not know what the hon. Gentleman thinks should happen to the people who committed those murders if they should be caught and convicted.

Mr. Hooley: The hon. Gentleman is well aware that there is increasing evidence that many of the massacres are being carried out by the security forces themselves.

Mr. Wall: Rubbish.

Mr. Hooley: That is being testified to by the kind of Church people that the hon. Gentleman was so anxious to quote. The Churches are producing increasing evidence that many of the atrocities are being committed by the security forces deliberately to set off the Africans one against the other.

Mr. Cope: Neither of us knows what happened in the incident that I mentioned. It is very recent, and we have no information about it. But, whoever committed the atrocity, the question still remains: what should happen to the people who committed it? I draw little distinction between the murderers and the "godfathers" who dispatch them and organise the murders, but we must still answer the question: what should happen to those who commit atrocities, whoever they be, if they are caught and convicted through the legal processes?
Certainly the majority of the atrocities, if not all, have been committed by terrorists sent from outside Rhodesia. I hope at least that the hon. Gentleman does not think that they should be applauded as freedom fighters, fighting for the freedom of the murdered children in Rushinga. I do not think that at all.
There is a wider aspect. Rhodesia has vast problems. Apart from the problems of finding a settlement and a bringing together of the races, it has a population explosion second to none in the world. The African population has risen from about 3½ million to 6½ million in the past 15 to 16 years. Rhodesia has an undeveloped country's birth rate and a developed country's survival rate, through modern medicine, yet it can feed and support its population. I believe that, given good organisation and agriculture in the future, it can do more than that, and feed half Africa. In working for a settlement, we the British and everyone else must as far as possible give Rhodesia the best chance to reach its potential in agriculture and other production to support the tremendous increase in the population.
Democracy means that the white Rhodesians cannot go on dominating the government of the country. That is what I believe, even though I also believe that the efficient oligopoly of the whites that has existed so far would be economically better for the country and all the Rhodesians, of every race. There will be an economic price to pay for democracy, just as many people think that we pay an economic price for democracy here, and are prepared to do so. The aim of every reasonable man should be not to incite those who want to drive the whites out and terrorise Africans in Rhodesia but to give them both, the whites and the Africans, the confidence to stay and contribute to the new Zimbabwe when it is formed after a settlement.
Exaggerating the case and putting it in a rather one-sided fashion—as I thought the hon. Member for Heeley did —makes it more difficult for the Foreign Secretary to gain and retain the confidence not only of the whites but of the many black Africans who are antiterrorist. I acknowledge the strength of the hon. Gentleman's feelings, but I think that hangings are to be deplored no more than the murders and acts of terrorism that lead to the convictions and the hangings that he deplores. Any death in a situation like this, as in Northern Ireland or anywhere else, makes the problem more difficult. There will be very few hangings, and I do not believe that it helps to distort the situation.

9.46 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Evan Luard): I would first like to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Mr. Hooley) on raising this subject today. It is an undoubted fact that the executions which he has described arouse the deepest revulsion and indignation not only in the House but in the country. I regret that there has not been adequate opportunity in the House for the strong feelings that I think are widely felt on this subject to be expressed and made known to the world. It is very important that the régime in Rhodesia should know the feelings of this country and the feelings of hon. Members on this matter. My hon. Friend has therefore done us a service in giving us the opportunity to consider the matter today
This question has aroused widespread concern in the House, in the Press and elsewhere over a considerable period. As my hon. Friend rightly said, this is a series of events that has been occurring since at least 1968.
There is no difference between the views of my hon. Friend and those of the Government towards this problem. My hon. Friend pointed out that the régime is an illegal régime, and I do not think that anyone in the House would dispute that. The hon. Member for Gloucestershire, South (Mr. Cope) rather ignored this vital element of the situation in some of the remarks that he addressed to my hon. Friend the Member for Heeley. I think that the approach of the hon. Member for Gloucestershire, South and his hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice (Mr. Wall) was not directed to the specific point that my hon. Friend raised, which concerned these executions, whether they were legal or not, and what people in this country can do to bring them to an end. Tonight may have been a useful opportunity for a wider discussion on the Rhodesian situation, but the hon. Members for Gloucestershire, South and Haltemprice were not addressing themselves to the point that my hon. Friend raised.
Because the régime is illegal, it therefore has no legal authority to undertake these executions or many other actions that it undertakes. The Government have always made it clear that we share the widespread and mounting abhorrence felt by the public at the Smith régime's prac-

tice of imprisoning and executing its political opponents. We have repeatedly called upon the régime to end such activities. We have done so in appeals made in this House in answers to questions from hon. Members and privately in exchanges between the Government and Mr. Smith.
As my right hon. Friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary told the House on 25th July, he raised the whole issue with Mr. Smith when he saw him in April and told him that these hangings were offensive to international opinion and that if Mr. Smith genuinely wanted to show that he was moving towards majority rule and towards a settlement, one of the ways of doing so would be to desist from them. Unfortunately, he has continued with them. My hon. Friend referred to the recent executions: those executions are not merely reported executions; the régime has admitted that they have taken place. The decision to continue with this practice is one of the problems that we have to face today.
I regret that I am unable to give the House details of exactly how many people are under sentence of death or have been hanged in Rhodesia because—as my hon. Friend described in his very full account of what has happened in Rhodesia in the past 10 years—the regime has now decided, presumably in answer to those who were attempting to draw attention to the regime's activities, not to publish any details of the hangings or to give any account of when executions have taken place.
Indeed, as is made clear from the Rhodesian Front reports of the execution of Robert Bhebe on 13th July, such secrecy now surrounds the execution of political detainees in Rhodesia that the relatives of condemned Africans are not aware that their execution has taken place until some time afterwards. This is another deplorable aspect which arouses deep repugnance in this House and in the country. In Mr. Bhebe's case, for example, nothing was known of his execution until his relatives called to see him on the morning of his death.
Such are the actions that we have unhappily come to expect from a regime which claims to be maintaining civilised standards. We have protested against this barbarity and will continue to protest. We commend, too, the activities of


those—and there is a large number of such individuals and organisations in this country—who are campaigning to draw attention to the regime's policies.
Hon. Members are entitled to ask what the Government are doing to prevent such activities. As many hon. Members will know, the Government have tried in many ways to bring home to the regime their anger at these executions. In 1968, for example, the then Labour Government advised Her Majesty The Queen to exercise the Royal Prerogative of Mercy in favour of three Africans under sentence of death in Rhodesia. Despite this, the regime went ahead and nothing that was done could prevent the three men from being hanged.

Mr. Wall: Does the Minister not recall that the three Africans in question were condemned for murder before UDI under the due process of law?

Mr. Luard: That may be the case, but I do not think that it affects the relevance of what I am saying. In that case Her Majesty exercised the Royal Prerogative of Mercy in favour of the Africans, but they were subsequently executed. That must be a relevant factor in considering whether we should recommend to Her Majesty that she should do the same thing about other proposed executions at present. We have to consider that possibility.
If we wish, as most of us in this House probably do, to make unmistakably clear to the regime in Rhodesia our very deep-felt repugnance at these executions, one of the clearest ways of doing so would be for the Royal Prerogative of Mercy to be exercised in those cases. It is certainly for consideration whether the Government should again do what was done in 1968 and make such a recommendation.
We have warned repeatedly that if anyone against whom there is evidence of criminal acts in Rhodesia comes within the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom, it will be open to my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General to consider instituting legal proceedings against him. I repeat and underline that warning today. We have been considering and will continue to consider what further pressures can be brought to bear on the régime. I have noted the suggestions that have been made today.
My hon. Friend the Member for Heeley suggested that this was a matter which should be raised in the United Nations and that the United Nations Security Council should explicitly issue a warning to the Smith régime on this matter. This is an interesting suggestion of which I should like to take note and which I shall forward to my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary. As my hon. Friend knows, the United Nations is already heavily involved in the affairs of Rhodesia, and it would be open to the Security Council, perhaps in the context of some other resolution, to make clear the very point that my hon. Friend has made, to issue a stern warning against a repetition of executions of this kind. That suggestion is well worth our bearing in mind.
It may be that there is scope for further action, and we shall once more look at the alternatives open to us. We certainly rule out no option.
Perhaps I may mention one particular point which I think is of fundamental importance in trying to exercise influence on the régime in Rhodesia on this matter. I believe that there is no Government in the world, including this régime, who are totally indifferent to publicity elsewhere, to widespread reports in the Press and through the media generally of the strongly held feelings of most people in other parts of the world. I believe that it is important that the Press of this country and that individuals in this country should make clear the feelings which I believe are widely shared here about these executions. My hon. Friend has done service by introducing this debate today, because it has provided an opportunity for such feelings to be expressed. I very much hope that they will not be lost on the régime in Rhodesia.
For reasons which the House will recognise and know, we have at present no practical means of stopping the executions in Rhodesia, especially in the face of what is clearly a grim determination on the part of the régime to carry them through. We shall continue, nevertheless, to do everything in our power to bring such heinous practices to an end. The best and possibly the only ultimate way of doing this is to achieve the negotiated solution for which we all are all now striving.
Meanwhile, I very much hope that the views which have been expressed so strongly in the debate today by my hon. Friend—views which are certainly widely shared in the country as a whole—will be carefully noted by the régime in Rhodesia and that they will recognise that if they want to secure a settlement an essential precondition is that they should cease these barbarous executions, which have aroused such justifiable anger not only in this country but throughout the Western world and the world.

Orders of the Day — HEATING COSTS

9.56 p.m.

Mr. Peter Brooke: The House—God and the Leader of the House willing—will rise tomorrow for the Summer Recess. We shall return in October, at a time when we shall be beginning to search the cellars for gunpowder, when there will be far fewer shopping days till Christmas, and when the elderly and the poor will be fearing the coming of winter and the cold. On one side of the ledger there are bonfires with roast chestnuts and yule logs, and on the other side of the ledger there is the terrible loneliness of the cold.
All of us in the Chamber tonight know of tragic stories of old people dying alone from hypothermia. Every death diminishes us all, and should make us less proud of the community in which we live. All of us, too, are aware of those who, living in such circumstances, fear the situation in which they live and for some of whom death comes as a blessed release.
It is so that we in the House, on the eve of our going on our summer holidays, may take thought for the morrow against this issue that I have the privilege of initiating this debate on help with heating costs. The task of initiating the debate, in which clearly others in the Chamber wish to follow me, seems to me to be to state the problem and its parameters and to suggest at least the framework of a solution on which others may subsequently build more detailed structures.
The problem is familiar to us all, that in a period of rapid inflation—I cast no stones in saying this; I am not discussing why there is a period of rapid inflation, this being a descriptive remark —the poor and the old have increasing difficulty in meeting heating bills, and put

their way of life, and sometimes their lives, at risk by the way in which they rearrange their expenditure to cope with the problems that inflation imposes upon them.
The clearest index of the extent of the problem, though it also affords encouragement, as I shall develop in a moment, is that in the winter of 1974 one-third of pensioners on supplementary benefit took up their heating addition. By the winter of 1975 that figure had risen to half. By the winter of 1976 it had risen to almost three-quarters, and all of us must hope that the 1977 figure will rise higher still. There are, however, about 500,000 pensioners who have the entitlement to take up supplementary benefit and who are not doing so—

It being Ten o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.

Orders of the Day — BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Ordered,
That, at this day's sitting, any proceedings on Motions relating to Committees to draw up Reasons, and the consideration of any Lords Messages which may be received may be proceeded with, though opposed, until any hour.— [Mr. Bates.]

Orders of the Day — CONSOLIDATED FUND (APPROPRIATION) BILL

Question again proposed, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Orders of the Day — HEATING COSTS

Mr. Brooke: There are 500,000 pensioners who could be on supplementary benefit and who are not choosing to take it up and, by not doing so, are losing the opportunity of taking the heating addition as well, since they cannot do so unless they are on supplementary benefit already. If this figure can be eaten into during 1977, we may hope that the percentage will rise still further. The recent leaflet on how to keep warm, which has been published in admirably large print for the elderly, is an encouragement in this regard.
As to the calculation of the heating additions, I have seen evidence from the Chairman of the Supplementary Benefits Commission indicating that from November 1970 to February 1976 the Retail Price (Fuel) Index—I distinguish that from the general index—went up by


112 per cent. whereas the extra heating additions went up by 120 per cent. over the same period.
The Retail Price (Fuel) Index, of course, embraces and includes much larger increases in recent years in the cost of coal, coke, and, especially, electricity, than in the cost of gas, paraffin and heating oil. It will be helpful if the Minister, when he sums up, will shed light on the present status of the fuel index and say whether he is happy about the protection which extra heating additions furnish at the moment in respect of the rise in electricity prices.
To the best of my knowledge, neither the general R P I nor the fuel index allows for greater heat usage among the elderly and the disabled, whose budgets are thus put at risk by the extra usage which outside observers and reports have emphasised that they have to deploy. This particularly applies in the context of central heating in those blocks of flats where the tenant has no control at all over the central heating that he uses.
As to solutions to the problem, I emphasise that I have a non-partisan attitude to it, and my only object in raising the subject is to help to solve it. Those who follow these matters will be aware of the simple narrative of recent years, over and above the extra heating additions which have been deployed in response to the problem—the code of practice on the disconnection of supply, in both the gas and the electricity industries, the electricity discount scheme which the Government brought in a year ago and have now renewed, the start of research on a self-cancelling token meter system, and the encouragement of home insulation.
In opening the debate I want to deal very briefly with these four subjects before I sit down. Concerning disconnection and the code of practice, all of us will be aware, at the local level, in our own constituencies, of a degree of argument about the way in which that code of practice should be interpreted in minor respects. There has been debate on that subject.
At the time when the Government introduced the electricity discount scheme, a year ago, I understand that electricity disconnections represented 0·8 per cent. for the country as a whole, and that gas

represented rather less than 0·4 per cent. for the country as a whole. The encouraging thing is that while those disconnections, both gas and electricity, had been steadily rising up to a year ago, in 1976 and 1977 they fell for the first time, and in electricity they fell significantly.
In terms of the distinction between the 0·8 per cent. for electricity and 0·4 per cent. for gas, I notice that a year ago, when the electricity discount scheme was first introduced, there was a marked discrepancy between the time that elapsed in the two industries. In the electricity industry the supply was disconnected, on average, 20 days after the final demand and 40 days after the first bill, whereas in the gas industry it was 25 days after the final demand and 55 days after the first bill. Whether those statistics have any impact on the fact that there are more electricity than gas disconnections, I do not know. If the Minister can shed any light on the matter I shall be grateful.
As for the electricity discount scheme, which the Government have just renewed, disconnections in the current year were down almost 25 per cent. on the previous year. I hope that the discount scheme is responsible for that marked reduction.
I should like to make two comments on the electricity discount scheme. First—this point has been brought to my notice in the last 24 hours since the subject for this debate was determined—I understand that in claiming the discount an electricity bill has to be produced. I believe that it is done through the Post Office. It has been represented to me that those who get their supply while living in caravans or as private tenants do not have access to electricity bills and consequently are unable to get the discount.
The second observation on the electricity discount sheme is that considerably more pensioners use solid fuel than electricity, by a margin of about 50 per cent. I understand that there is no move at present that solid fuel should enjoy the same kind of discount as electricity under the plan that I gather was confirmed as recently as today. Others of my hon. Friends may care to pursue that matter further. I shall leave others better qualified than myself to speak on the question of metering and the tariff in general.
I confess that I have not read the joint departmental report on Energy


tariffs and the poor, which came out last year. I understand from those who have read it that some of its data and evidence were regarded as being incomplete and out of date. Indeed, the National Consumer Council, in its interim report of 27th May last year to the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection, felt that the data presented proved a case totally opposite to the conclusion reached in the joint departmental report. I understand that it proved that tariff restructuring did offer a way of helping the poor with their fuel bills.
Not having read the report, I should add that the Heating Action Group, which includes Age Concern, Help the Aged and the Child Poverty Action Group, is broadly in agreement with the conclusions in the departmental report.
There remains the question of insulation, on which a number of my hon. Friends may choose to follow my remarks. Partly stimulated by voluntary groups throughout the country—I cite the Friends of the Earth in particular—and sustained by the considerable work done under the job creation scheme—I understand that between 50,000 and 100,000 insulation projects have been undertaken —a little progress has been made. But three matters occur to me in that regard.
First of all, for every possible national investment and energy-saving reason, insulation should be pursued as a matter of priority. Secondly, the insulation industry is somewhat fragmented and small scale, and lacking in the kind of large companies with large marketing budgets that would stimulate demand from the public. Thirdly, the Government have not been lending great force to the expansion of the insulation campaign, as they prefer to regard it as something that is better left to the private consumer.
The fact that the industry is fragmented is not the responsibility of the Government. However, it seems to be more the responsibility of the Government, in areas where they can do so, to wield influence to get this campaign moving.
There is no national help in the area that we are discussing. I am not aware of the Government's giving any help to insulation beyond the job creation projects that I have mentioned. These are not available for improvement grants.

In the case of the elderly and disabled, local authorities can apply to the Secretary of State for the Envionment for consent, under his direction in paragraph 8 of the DOE Circular 8/76 for help to be given with heating insulation for the elderly and disabled. But everything that I have heard suggests that it is a rather long-winded process, which takes up to nine months or more through these channels. To get such help for this coming winter would be impossible, because the nine months' delay is too long.
My general feeling is that what we need is a much more concentrated campaign, led by the Government, to help resolve the problem. Years ago, in the Christmas issue of one of the relevant professional magazines, a light-hearted but rather aggressive critic of Good King Wenceslas claimed that he had committed every possible mistake in the social field. There were reservations about whether flesh and wine were too rich for yonder peasant. Pine logs, it was claimed, would not burn properly, but would smoke, and there was concerned criticism about about what the page was made to do in being sent a good league hence.
The same comparison seems to apply to the Government. Everybody's heart is in the right place, just as Good King Wenceslas's was. We all know what we are trying to do, but we are not achieving as much as we should or we might. Good King Wenceslas did not use his head, but there was drive behind his actions. The reservation that I have is that this campaign is not being properly co-ordinated or pursued with the drive and energy that the question demands.

10.13 p.m.

Mr. J. W. Rooker: I congratulate hon. Members opposite on being so successful in drawing an early place in the Consolidated Fund debate. In the past I have drawn positions Nos. 1 or 2. The Conservatives' success means that tonight some of us can get away much earlier than we have done on other occasions this week.
The title of the debate covers a wide area and I do not think that I could possibly disagree with anything said by hon. Members opposite or anything that will be said by my hon. Friend who is to reply to the debate. Every hon. Member taking part in the debate, except myself, will be speaking about issues


and problems which he can rightly say affect his constituents and are relevant to the rest of the population
I am not in that position because I shall raise one aspect of help with heating costs that is provided by the DHSS and is unique to the city of Birmingham. This help is not widely known. I suspect that if this debate were not taking place shortly before the Summer Recess, many hon. Members would now put down questions asking why the people in Birmingham should receive special help from the Government, over and above what is received by others in the country. That would be a legitimate point, and it is one upon which I can assist the House. The Government are about to remove the assistance that is given to Birmingham, although I wish that things were the other way round and that the assistance was to be extended to the rest of the population.
I shall briefly describe the background to the scheme, because it is extremely important. Pensioners in Birmingham who are council tenants are covered by a scheme whereby they can pay their heating costs with their rent. The scheme is known as HARP—the heating and rent payments scheme. It covers all form of heating—gas and electricity. The scheme commenced early in 1973 and came into operation in January and February 1974. It was started by the city housing department following investigations into hypothermia which had revealed a trend of which I am sure hon. Members are aware. It was that the elderly were unwilling to spend sufficient money on heating. Hon. Members will not need to be reminded of the horror stories of the winters of 1972 and 1973. Things have not been as bad since then, because recent winters have been milder.
Birmingham City Council decided to do something about it. The council could act only for its own tenants. That is one of the problems. The council worked out and fixed a scheme based on the size of the household and the number of rooms in a house. It applied to pensioners' households only where there was not more than one dependant. That point is important. The scheme is not freely available to all citizens. The city council fixed a set of charges, and under the scheme—as originally defined—each

pensioner had to pay a weekly charge with the rent, but once a pensioner was in the scheme all his gas and electricity bills—whatever the amount of fuel used —were covered by the single charge.
The scheme was not like an ordinary budget plan, with which hon. Members must be familiar, whereby at the end of the year the gas or electricity board works out whether it owes the consumer money or the other way around. The scheme was an open-ended commitment based on a fixed single charge related to the size of the household. All the bills were paid. Gas and electricity bills were sent straight to the housing department.
When the scheme was about to be introduced, the housing department approached the Department of Health and Social Security saying that it wanted to set up the scheme, which it believed would be a good idea. Birmingham has a good track record on many aspects of municipal life—such as banking—and this initiative was unique. Such a scheme has not been operated by any other local authority in the country. Other authorities have looked at the scheme and shied away for reasons that I shall explain later. The DHSS told Birmingham housing department that it thought that the scheme was a good idea and that the Ministry would put some money into it.
The Birmingham HARP scheme is the only example that I or anyone else in what might be called the poverty lobby know of as an open-ended commitment for expenditure. The housing department was worried about pensioner tenants who were entitled to extra heating allowances under the rules of the Supplementary Benefits Commission. There is a whole list of such rules and categories, but I shall not bore the House with them now. I am sure that hon. Members know them from dealing with the cases of their own constituents. The settlements vary between 70p and £2·40 a week, although those were not the rates at the time that the scheme started. The HARP charges were quite high, and had to be so because the scheme was initially intended to be self-financing. It was not envisaged that money paid by way of rates would be used for the scheme. The DHSS said that it would pay to pensioners in the scheme the difference between the notional amount of heating costs that are


already included in pensions plus the supplementary benefit extras and the HARP charges. Pensioners in the scheme have been getting a bonus that is unique to the city of Birmingham. No other pensioner in this country receives the special help from the Department.
Problems arose within about a year because of the rise in electricity prices. The Government phased out subsidies to nationalised industries and, because of this, together with oil price rises and other factors, electricity prices went through the roof. However, for pensioners who joined the HARP scheme before November 1975, the notional figure of £1·80 for heating costs has not changed. Those in centrally-heated properties now receive a bonus of more than £2 a week over and above extra benefits such as exceptional needs allowance.
When electricity prices went up in 1975, some households dropped out of the scheme, despite the bonus that they were receiving. There were 22,000 pensioner households in the scheme in 1974–75 compared with about 14,000 households now. About 2,500 are on the budget plan and recoup any excess paid to the HARP scheme—but they still! get the bonus from the Department. Of course, the DHSS does not like open-ended commitments. A number of pensioners dropped out of the scheme, electricity prices increased and pensioners did something that they were not expected to do—they used heating to keep warm.
Last month, the Minister for Social Security wrote to every hon. Member representing a Birmingham constituency to tell us that the Supplementary Benefit Commision proposed certain changes in the support given to supplementary pensioners participating in the HARP scheme. I am not talking about the electricity discount scheme. Pensioners in the HARP scheme do not get help under the discount scheme because they do not receive the electricity bills. However, they do get the bonus from the DHSS, and that is where the problem arises. They do not appreciate that they are getting a bonus and they still have trouble making ends meet. Now they are to be told that they are getting the bonus and that it is to be taken away from them.
When my right hon. Friend wrote to Birmingham Members, I was ensconced in the Finance Bill Committee and had

other things on my mind. It took a couple of days for the letter to sink in. It was a three-page letter sent to hon. Members who should be able to understand these things, but the quality and precision of the language was such that one had to read and re-read it before getting the message. The message was that at the November uprating this year, the Supplementary Benefits Commission proposed to take away some of the extra bonus up to a maximum of £1·50 a week for a married couple and £1 a week from a single person.
Some of the pensioners are getting more than that, and it is intended to take away the rest of the bonus in November next year. My right hon. Friend said that this would be done at the time of the uprating because the Commission considered that the impact of the withdrawal would be less if it were done at the time of the uprating than if the HARP additions were withdrawn at any other time of the year.
That is pure Orwellian Newspeak. I am not accusing anyone of trying to slip the change through on the quiet. There is no chance of that happening when a letter is sent to hon. Members for Birmingham constituencies. But it is being done in a way which will prevent 14,000 pensioner households from realising the full impact of what is proposed. What they will know in November, when they are supposed to get their pension increase, is that they have not received the same increase as everyone else. I know that they are getting a bonus over and above that received by others, but my argument is that it is a damned good scheme. It is administratively convenient.
That is one reason for the scheme having the approval of the DHSS in the first place. It admitted that the scheme had certain administrative advantages. It took away all the worries and problems of disconnection and the problems that pensioners suffer when they receive one massive fuel bill. It took away hundreds of thousands of individual problems. The Department wanted pensioners to have the extra help in the knowledge that they would be able to keep warm as a result. It is as simple and crude as that.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has answered several of my Questions in Hansard. One of them is answered in columns 425 and 426 of Hansard


of 4th July. My right hon. Friend has said on the record that it is not the extra money that is being paid to Birmingham pensioners that is the problem but that the payment is unfair to other supplementary pensioners who do not receive the increasingly greater advantages that go to those in the HARP scheme.
Whose fault is that? It is the fault, by and large, of the DHSS or the Commission. I believe that they are one and the same. I shall not be fobbed off by the answer that this is a Commission decision. The Commission is answerable to the DHSS and Ministers are answerable to the House. That is where responsibility lies. It is said that the extra advantage given to the Birmingham pensioners is unfair as it is not given to other pensioners. If the scheme is good, stops pensioners dying from hypothermia and is administratively convenient, and if it is not the cost but the unfairness that is the worrying feature, the answer is to allow other pensioners to receive the increased benefit, not to take the advantage from those who benefit from it.
What is the extra subsidy that is paid to Birmingham pensioners? It seems that we do not know the cost. It is said to be approaching £1 million a year. Originally there was £25 million set aside for the discount scheme. According to the Supply Estimates only £7·6 million has been spent. It seems that the budget for next year is £11 million, which is nowhere near £25 million. That is the sum that was mentioned when the scheme was announced many months ago.
The money was allocated but the take-up has not been organised properly. However, we in Birmingham have organised our affairs especially well. I agree that the scheme applies to a select group of people who happen to be council tenants. There was a problem in making the scheme available to other pensioners. However, that is no reason for not going ahead with it. We have organised our affairs so well that the take-up has been substantial.
There has hardly been a scare story or otherwise of pensioners dying from hypothermia in Birmingham during the last two winters. I accept that they have been mild winters. The scheme costs about £1 million a year for Birmingham,

which is a large city. I do not see why other local authorities should not be encouraged to follow suit. No money need come out of the rates. In 1975 Birmingham spent £750,000 from its rate fund but the district auditor soon put the kybosh on that. It was said to be ultra vires. There is no rate fund contribution. It is the taxpayers' contribution.
Whatever their age and family commitments, most taxpayers do not like to think of old-age pensioners dying from the cold. Notwithstanding public expenditure cuts, I do not think their is anyone who complains about the level of income tax when a scheme is introduced that is designed specifically to protect pensioners. I do not think that anyone would attack such a scheme.
The cost of the subsidy is not very great. The charges for the scheme are not modest. The HARP charge for two persons in a two-bedroomed household is £4·85 a week without central heating and £4·45 with it. That is not a modest level of charges. I must have at least 1,200 to 1,400 pensioner households in the scheme in my constituency. No one can say that they are getting a massive subsidy from the taxpayer.

Mr. Tim Sainsbury: With regard to the figures that the hon. Member has just quoted for the variation between houses with central heating and those without, is the central heating figure for full central heating or a partial installation?

Mr. Rooker: I am sorry that I cannot answer that question. The document says "Homes with central heating." By and large, in Birmingham I think that this would apply only to tower blocks of flats with under-floor heating, and I suspect that that is the form of heating about which we are talking. It is an increase of about 60p a week. Usually the HARP charge refers to the same number of people in a household with the same number of bedrooms. It is about 60p a week higher if there is central heating. We should bear in mind that some are getting a substantial bonus and that others are not getting very much.
Three-quarters of the pensioners in the HARP scheme are supplementary benefit pensioners, who can probably apply for any of the rates available in Leaflet OC2.


The minimum is 70p. That is going up by the fantastic amount of 10p in November. The minimum extra heating cost will then be 80p. Therefore, many of them would be able to get this extra benefit which is available to everyone else. But they have been getting benefit over and above that, and I am not seeking to hide the fact.
I want the Government to think twice about doing the phase-out in November. First, there has not been enough time to discuss it with hon. Members. In the last sentence of my right hon. Friend's letter of 28th June, there was an offer. He said,
I hope you will find this letter helpful, but if you would like to discuss it, David Donnison and I would be very happy to meet you and those of your Birmingham colleagues who want to come and see us. If you will let my private office k now if you wish to attend they will arrange a convenient time for the meeting.
David Donnison is the Chairman of the Supplementary Benefits Commission.
I did let the private office know. There has not been a meeting. Why? In telling hon. Members why, I make no criticism of my colleagues in Birmingham in any way. It so happens that I was the only Birmingham Member to telephone the private office. I was told, "we shall not meet one Member."
I know that there are problems in Birmingham. Some of my hon. Friends have said to my right hon. Friend "Rooker is stirring it up. He is alleging that hundreds will die from hypothermia." That is not true. I have made one public statement in Birmingham on this subject. I said that the phasing out of the HARP additions could mean more old people dying of cold next winter than was the case last winter. That is not an extremist statement. I was angry when I' said that, but I meant it. I also said that more pensioners would face disconnection problems than has been the case in previous winters. I am talking only about Birmingham.
The other factor is that the City of Birmingham housing department runs the scheme, and not the DHSS. When the letter was sent to the hon. Members, the housing department had not been informed of the matter. It is true that it knew a year ago that the Supplementary Benefits Commission wanted to phase out the additions—I have copies of the corre-

spondence—but no action was ever taken. I forwarded a copy of my letter to my councillor, a former chairman of the housing committee. He took it into the housing department. It was the first time that that department had heard about it. Up to 14th July, the city of Birmingham housing department had still not been informed officially that the additions were to be phased out.
That is what worries me. The letter said that the DHSS and the housing department would be writing to all pensioners in the HARP scheme explaining why they will lose this extra bonus. When I tabled a Question, there was panic in the DHSS, and in Birmingham some people hot-tailed it over to the housing department with a draft letter to the tenants. That was thrown straight out. The housing department said that the letter would not be going to its tenants, simply because it would look as though it was the city authorities that were making the decision.
I am not making any party points. The scheme was initiated by a Labour-controlled authority with full support from the Conservative opposition, and it has been operated by a Conservative-controlled authority with full support from the Labour opposition. This is not a party point at all. Surely the people in charge of the administration of Birmingham have the final right to say what letter goes to their tenants, since it will go out in their names.
Having been prevented from meeting formally the Chairman of the Supplementary Benefits Commission and my right hon. Friend I urged that the phasing out of the bonus should be delayed until hon. Members have seen the letter that will go out. I have seen the letter that was sent to hon. Members. We are supposed to understand these things, but I shall be absolutely astonished if the quality of the letter which is sent to the tenants differs from the one that came to us, unless we step in and stop it.
It will terrify the tenants. It already has, because I had the responisbility of making public the letter that was sent to us. The scheme has been applauded throughout the country. Even The Times, when reporting the phasing out, said that it was a widely acclaimed scheme.

Mr. Tom King: This is primarily a social services matter concerned with helping those who have difficulty in meeting heating costs. There is another aspect with which I am interested, and that is energy conservation.
I do not want to pursue this, but am I right in thinking that the HARP scheme was so structered to povide that heating costs were collected from tenants on a weekly payments basis and that while the majority of tenants have observed this perfectly honourably there were no restraints in terms of the cost to the tenant with regard to whatever heating they chose to use?

Mr. Rooker: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. That is also a problem. I am not suggesting that there has never been any abuse. Indeed, I know of a case where someone went into a pensioner's house and found all the windows open and all the heating switched on. That is absolutely potty. In a city like Birmingham, with 1 million people, there are bound to be a few nut cases, but by and large, that sort of thing does not happen.
People have been educated about the cost of this scheme, but when the cost goes up from £2·35 per week to £5·50 they start to think twice about it.
What was really wrong was that tenants were never informed of what heating they used. The bills went straight to the local housing authority. There was no system whereby tenants were told how much extra they would have to pay and how much heating they had used.
While we want to ensure that people keep warm and use sufficient heat, we also want to ask for restraint. It is therefore only right that we should tell these people what heating they have used and how much it has cost.

Mr. Tom King: It may not have been explained to the tenants, but are there any figures to show how their heating costs compare with other properties where this scheme has not operated?

Mr. Rooker: These figures are available in a form. I shall give them to the hon. Gentleman. He is quite right, and has made fair points, which I accept.
When electricity costs went through the roof in 1975, many people said that they

could not afford the cost of the HARP scheme. The number of people taking part in the scheme fell from 22,000 to 11,000. There is also a budget plan scheme whereby, at the end of the year, if a person has not paid enough he pays an extra amount and, likewise, if he has paid too much he gets the excess back. I think at present that 2,500 pensioners take part in that scheme. They are paying more of the real cost of their fuel than those on the fixed charge scheme.
Membership of the budget plan, under which there is a responsibility to pay at the end of the day, stood at 2,499 at the end of March 1977. The income in 1976–77 from that scheme was £392,700 and expenditure amounted to £362,800. Pensioners will receive money back because they paid in £30,000 more than was needed for the fuel that they used. Because they know that they must pay their bills, they have been moderate in the use of fuel. They used less than was estimated by the Birmingham Corporation for the size of dwellings.
The income from the HARP fixed charge scheme in 1976–77 was £628,000 and expenditure £2,341,000 for 1,146 dwellings. It is anticipated by the city housing department that despite known fuel price increases the current charges will be maintained until April 1978 in both cases. During the last financial year the usage compared with the estimate has been less for both schemes.

Mr. Tom King: If I interpret the figures correctly the interesting point is not how well the budget balanced but what was the actual usage of fuel in the scheme where there was a responsibility to pay. From the hon. Member's figures it seems that it cost about £150 per household and that the cost was between 50 per cent. and 60 per cent. higher in the scheme which was open-ended. I calculate that by quick mental arithmetic. I imagine that there is no basic difference between the households involved.

Mr. Rooker: That might be correct. It is a crucial point. The charges under each scheme are not the same. Those on the fixed scheme pay 60p or 70p a week. It is natural that those who must settle the account at the end of the year use less fuel, and therefore the charge is less for them.

Mrs. Lynda Chalker: Is it suggested in the letter of 28th June that those who are to lose the SBC bonus will be put on to the fixed scheme, or will they suffer twice over?

Mr. Rooker: Supplementary benefit pensioners are in the budget HARP scheme. The scheme is not to disappear. But once the extra subsidy goes, more people will withdraw from the scheme, the numbers will drop, and the authority might have to scrap the scheme. It is possible that on the fixed HARP scheme, when they lose their bonus, will transfer to the budget scheme, and perhaps they will come out all right.
Perhaps we shall have to scrap the fixed HARP scheme and run a budget HARP scheme for everybody. But even that does not detract from the point that we have been discussing. The city of Birmingham wants letters sent from the DHSS to 14,000 households in non-Civil Service language—certainly not in the language that we have come to expect from the Civil Service in correspondence, replies in this House, and all the rest of it. That will not be good enough for those concerned, because of the problems and queries that they will wish to raise. Most of them do not appreciate that they are receiving a bonus. That was why there was such a row when they realised that they could not become involved in the 25 per cent. winter discount scheme run by the Department of Energy. They were told "You are getting an extra bonus over and above everybody else", and that was a view which those concerned did not accept.
I hope that hon. Members will put pressure on the DHSS and press local authorities to consider schemes on a self-financing basis. We have shown that it is possible to come within striking distance of self-financing schemes to help pensioners, and in this context we are dealing mainly with the elderly. There are, of course, other problems connected with the disabled and non-council tenants, neither of whom are covered.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: The hon. Gentleman does a notable service in bringing these matters before the House. I want to be clear what he is seeking to persuade the Government to do. Does he think that the SBC additions should continue to be paid

to those who enjoy the benefits of the fixed HARP scheme, as he calls it, or is he asking the Government to delay withdrawing the SBC benefit until he and his colleagues have had a chance to vet the letter that is to be sent to them?

Mr. Rooker: That is a simplistic way of putting the point. I know that eventually the bonus will be withdrawn. The DHSS will point to the inherent unfairness in one group as opposed to another. I am seeking to salvage a scheme of this kind, which provides assistance. This can be done by seeking first not to proceed with the first part of the phasing out this November. I should like to see a delay until the beginning of next spring, which is a time when fuel bills are not so high. That will give those involved more confidence.
I think that the Minister should examine the question of phasing out. The Government tried to phase out in August 1976, but the proces was delayed. The SBC has taken no action in this respect. I am asking for a delay in phasing out, but I am also asking for more attention to be paid to the way in which people are notified about these matters. This is a legitimate request when we consider that no hon. Member has been granted audience with the Chairman of the SBC. I am not asking for an open-ended scheme throughout the country. I am defending the status quo in Birmingham because I feel that it is a good scheme. The scheme has been of great use in Birmingham, although I accept that there are problems since it is open-ended. The old notional figure was £1·80; the present notional figure in terms of pension and supplementary payment is £3·20.
When the notional figures were operated each November account could have been taken of that, and no one would have complained. There are now unfairnesses between people, even in the fixed HARP scheme. If one joined before November 1975 one receives bigger bonuses. That is unfair, and I shall not defend it.

Mrs. Chalker: We are grateful to the hon. Gentleman for what he has told us. Will he repeat the number of people on the fixed-price HARP scheme and the number on the budget HARP scheme, and the cost of each? The point that the hon. Gentleman has made tonight is


important, because it might set a precedent to meet the concern already being expressed by other local authorities which would like to do something to help elderly and handicapped who are beset by increasing heating costs.

Mr. Rooker: The local authority is not helping. There is no rate fund contribution. It is organising the scheme, but local government has no power to use any part of the rates to subsidise heating for anybody. The sum of £750,000 was used earlier, but the district auditor threw it out.
On 31st March 1977 there were 11,286 household members of the fixed charge scheme. During the previous 12 months, income from the charges they paid every week was £2,628,000, against expenditure of £2,341,000. On that basis the charges will be maintained until April 1978. There is no need for an increase. Membership of the budget plan HARP scheme on 31st March 1977 was 2,499 pensioner households. Over the previous 12 months, income from charges was £392,700 and expenditure was £362,800. This enabled refunds to be made where appropriate in subsequent weeks. Not everybody had a refund. The individual bills were checked, and some people may have had to pay more into the scheme.
I have made my point, which, although strictly a constituency matter in many ways, has a bearing on what other hon. Members may wish to say.

Mr. Speaker: I know that every hon. Member feels free to speak for as long as he likes, but there are many of our colleagues whose debates will never be reached if we have many more speeches lasting 39 minutes. It is customary to bear in mind those who are waiting through the night to make their speeches.
May I tell the House that copies of the Lords disagreement to Commons amendments to Lords amendments to the Unfair Contract Terms Bill are now available in the Vote Office. A formal communication will of course be made to the House if it is eventually decided to consider the Lords disagreement at a later hour.

10.53 p.m.

Mr. Robin Hodgson: The hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry

Barr (Mr. Rooker) has again proved an assiduous researcher into matters affecting the needy, and has clearly caught the imagination of many hon. Members. We all look forward to hearing the Minister's reply.
I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not mind if I do not go into his detailed argument on the HARP scheme as it relates to Birmingham. I should like to deal with the winter electricity discount and how that scheme fits into the wider scheme of social security payments.
One of the problems with the Welfare State is the enormous complexity of the system. That complexity comes about not only because the establishment of eligibility for benefits is highly complex but because eligibility for one set of benefits is often dependent on a person's proving eligibility for another set.
Through your good offices, Mr. Speaker, I raised in an Adjournment debate earlier this summer the question of benefits payable to the blind. As researched that subject the number of benefits that emerged was truly fantastic. According to whether one was warblinded, industrially blinded or medically blinded, the benefits and the inter-linking network under which they were payable became more and more complex and incomprehensible.
The complexity in the supplementary benefit scheme is well illustrated by the Department's own handbook, of which I have a copy with me. It is interesting, informative and clearly written, but it runs to 115 pages and covers only supplementary benefit. It does not cover many of the other social security payments that are available.
It is not surprising that elderly people who are perhaps primarily dependent on the social security system are almost defeated by the paper work. With the discounts on electricity bills the confusion is compounded, because a new Department—the Department of Energy—is running the scheme, and it has no other social security links. The people in the Department are unfamiliar with the workings of the system. It is also a new method of payment. Instead of payment of cash at the post office, as with other benefits, a voucher is issued for claiming against an electricity bill.
This leads to the first weakness of the scheme. Its complexity means that the take-up is very low and therefore the relative administrative cost is rather high. Local DHSS officers get many inquiries about the scheme, but they know nothing about it because it is not their responsibility. They have to refer inquiries to another authority, probably the electricity board. I wonder how many of those inquiring, particularly the elderly, are thus put off and do not bother to press their claim with the alternative source to which they have been directed.
My hon. Friend the Member for the City of London and Westminster, South (Mr. Brooke), in an illuminating speech, said that many people do not draw supplementary benefit because they are too proud to do so. Others on supplementary benefit do not draw the heating addition. There is the more extraordinary case of those on the direct payment mechanism who do not participate in the discount scheme. Under that mechanism the DHSS makes a direct deduction from the supplementary benefit to help people who find it difficult to meet their fuel bills. Having taken the deduction, the Department makes a payment direct to the electricity board on the claimant's behalf. By this method the board can identify customers who are in the scheme. Their accounts are specifically marked and amended to show the special method of payment.
In the West Midlands—and I have no reason to suspect that the situation is different elsewhere—a large number of customers whose Bills are being paid by the direct payment mechanism are not receiving the electricity bill discounts, and did not do so last winter. This problem could easily be tackled at the administrative level, because if the customer's account is specifically marked to show that he is using the direct payment mechanism, it also indicates that he is on supplementary benefit and needs help with his fuel bill. Here is a simple way of connecting one factor with another.
I hope that the Minister will examine means whereby the system can be simplified by payment being made through more conventional channels. One electricity board told me that it was not in the business of social work or of making social security payments.
The second unsatisfactory feature of the discount scheme is the arbitrary nature by which it is paid. It is available on electricity, and that has introduced a haphazard element into the scheme. Since the scheme has so many commendable aspects, why should it not be applied to gas, paraffin, heating oil, coal and coke? In my constituency many elderly people prefer to have a heating system with which they are familiar. They are—rightly or wrongly—frightened of gas, because of the possibility of leaks. They may be frightened of electricity. They prefer to stick with the old coal and coke range. This is particularly true amongst the elderly. It is a pity that the discount scheme on fuel is not available to them as well. It is wrong that an elderly person should suffer additional hardship because of the pure chance of the means by which his house is heated.
The secondary arbitrary aspect concerns those eligible to take part in the scheme. It is available only to those on supplementary benefit. It ignores many other classes of people who are just as much in need—handicapped persons on other forms of benefit and those in receipt of straightforward national insurance benefits. Both these categories of people can in certain circumstances demonstrate just as great a need as those on supplementary benefit. I hope that when the Minister replies he will explain why the scheme should not be extended in a more even-handed manner.
I turn to the vexed question of disconnection policy. I believe that the Government were right to confirm, as I understand they have, the local board's power to disconnect. I greatly regret that this ultimate weapon is needed and must be retained by the local boards if we are to ensure that consumers behave responsibly. Against this background of the ultimate deterrent of having their fuel cut off, I welcome the new code of practice drawn up by the industry which I believe will nearly always act as a failsafe mechanism and should give consumers greater information about their rights and privileges. None the less, I hope that the local boards will keep in close touch with local social service departments and the DHSS with a view to avoiding any tragedy that might result from a premature disconnection. I hope that the Minister will bear that in mind


when he issues his instructions to local electricity boards and gas boards about their policy during the coming winter.
I believe that the Government were right to adhere to the policy of disconnection, because it is becoming a power which is increasingly rarely used. In the West Midlands area in 1968, out of 1·6 million consumers there were 22,000 disconnections. By 1976 the number of disconnections had fallen to nearly half—13,000—even though the number of consumers had risen to 1·8 million. That is about ½ per cent. of the total consumers on the electricity supply.
However, in all these points we are dealing with symptoms rather than causes. We are trying to tackle the results of problems rather than tackling the problems at their roots. This will always be a constraint upon the success of the efforts that may be made. I hope that in future two points will be borne in mind by the Government. The first is the need for greater emphasis on the policies for insulation. These were commendably clearly laid out by my hon. Friend the Member for City of London and Westminster, South.
The second point I want to stress is the importance of the voluntary movement. There is a feeling abroad that the Government do not approve of the voluntary movement—Meals on Wheels, WRVS, and so on—and that when cuts have to be made in Government expenditure it is the grants in aid to the voluntary movement which have been sacrificed first.

The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. Eric Deakins): I must interrupt the hon. Gentleman on that point, because he is completely off beam. I must pull him up immediately. In the current year my Department has in fact increased from about £3 million to £5 million its grants to a whole variety of voluntary organisations covering every aspect of social endeavour by 60 pe rcent. It is quite incorrect to say that this Government, or, indeed, any other Government, are not aware of the worth of and the valuable contribution made in our social endeavour by the volunteers in all the various movements.

Mr. Hodgson: I thank the Minister for that comment. Of course, £5 million is a large increase over £3 million, but that

has to be set in perspective against the massive sums at his disposal. It is all very well to talk about £5 million as being a large increase over the previous figure, but the fact remains that there is a feeling abroad that it is the voluntary bodies which will bear the brunt of any Government action. That fear has certainly been repeated in my constituency, and I am sure that others of my hon. Friends will confirm what I say.
I hope that the Minister will emphasise the need for and the importance of the voluntary bodies in identifying and helping in cases of this kind, particularly among the elderly, where people need help with heating, in order to avoid some of the tragedies which have hitherto disfigured our news each winter.
The discount scheme to help with heating, in my opinion, has been only half thought out, and its operation has revealed many omissions and discrepancies. It has shown itself as working in an arbitrary fashion, not necessarily helping those in real need. We want a scheme which is more evenhanded in its application. Such a scheme could operate effectively under the tax credit system which has been proposed so many times by the Opposition, and I regret that this Government have taken so violently against that policy. I look forward to its introduction by the next Conservative Government. I am sure that it will do much to channel help to those really in need.

11.6 p.m.

Mr. Tim Sainsbury: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for the City of London and Westminster (Mr. Brooke) not only on his choice of subject but upon his position in the draw. It is, perhaps, lucky that we have reached this point after 10 o'clock because, in parliamentary terms, I am in another day and another copy of the Official Report, separate from the discussions that we were having not so many hours ago about the housing of the homeless.
We are all familiar with the nature of the problem before us—the problem of heating bills and keeping warm. We all suffer from the cold, regardless of age, and, as hon. Members have already said, we are well aware that it is the elderly and the retired who suffer or who are at risk most severely. One can fairly add that with increasing age the risk


increases. There is no magic point in retirement at which the problem of hypothermia and illnesses associated with the cold suddenly develops. The risk increases as people grow older.
I am sure that the Minister knows that one of the features of the demographic profile of our country brought out clearly in a recent publication by Age Concern is the ever-growing number of people over the age of 75 as opposed to over 65. I see that the hon. Gentleman is aware of that. It is these people who are most at risk. Perhaps I may add a constituency point here. I think it fair to say that, apart from the fact that in my part of the country we have a high concenration of senior citizens, and, indeed, those who are over 75, a large number of them live in property which is much exposed to the elements. Although the climate generally in the South is a little warmer than it is in the North, those concerned with energy and heat conservation know that wind pressure is an important factor leading to loss of heat through walls, roofs and windows and in creating draughty conditions in buildings. Therefore, in a windy area—I assure the Minister that Hove can be very windy on occasion—people are that much more at risk.
Moreover, as several hon. Members have said, we may well be overdue for a hard winter. It is much better to be prepared for it than to be caught out and have very unhappy experiences when it comes.
I accept that we have Government recognition of the problem. This debate has shown that we welcome what has been done, but there is a general feeling that not enough may have been done. Clearly, in the present economic climate—I shall not stray out of order into a discussion about why we are in a period of financial stringency—we must look for the most cost-effective ways of helping with people's heating bills.
I put it to the Minister that we must all accept that the best way to spend the money that is available—not necessarily all of it, but an increasing amount—is to encourage conservation. The drawbacks of the other means that we can use to help, and to which hon. Members referred, are well known. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr Rooker) said that too many people spend

insufficient money on heating. We are all familiar with cases in our constituencies where elderly people, because of the expense that they know they will incur if they try to warm to the proper level the premises they occupy, do not spend the money to warm their premises sufficiently.
In some premises, particularly in a hard winter or when there are very high wind velocities, it is not possible, with the heating installation available, to heat them to a reasonable temperature in order to avoid the risks with which we are all familiar.
As has been pointed out, particular help is given to people who use electricity and not enough is given to those who, for a variety of reasons, use other methods of heating, which are very often preferred methods.
Another problem is the extent of the take-up. My hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Hodgson) pointed out that the selective benefits have to be applied for, and that there is inevitably a shortfall in the take-up. There must be many cases in which there is eligibility and need but no take-up.
On the energy side of the equation, it should be recognised that if we are just helping people with their fuel bills and not helping them to conserve fuel and get better use out of the fuel they use, we are increasing the peak demand on the whole country, particularly at cold times of the year, and especially when people are cooking the Sunday lunch.
The cost of meeting peak demand, as I am sure the Minister is aware, is very expensive. It falls upon all consumers. If we put up the cost of producing fuel in order to meet peaks which could be reduced by proper conservation, we are imposing an extra cost on every consumer of fuel, and particularly on every consumer of electricity. But, most of all—this is the drawback of helping people with the bill instead of helping them get better value—we are wasting fuel, which is a limited resource.
I am sure that we are all grateful to the voluntary bodies for what they have done to remind us and the country at large of the nature of our finite resources, but I particularly mention what the Friends of the Earth have done in encouraging


conservation. We should give more positive encouragement to programmes of conservation and really encourage some of the simple and very economical work which could be done in this connection.
There has been reference to the job creation scheme. I very much welcome the scheme that has been introduced for insulating the roofs of the homes of council tenants. This creates jobs at a time when there is an appalling level of unemployment, particularly among school leavers, many of whom could easily, with limited supervision, carry out this sort of work. We are saving fuels and also creating work as a result of the demand for insulating materials. We are at the same time reducing the problems of inflation for the elderly and for everyone else if we can help people with the running costs of their fuel.
In addition to this, to the extent to which we can conserve our finite fuel resources now we are to an extent buying time for programmes for the development of alternative sources of fuel to become sufficiently developed to make a really worthwhile contribution to the total fuel needs of the country.
The disadvantages of doing nothing are obvious. Youths who could be employed will remain unemployed. Companies could go out of business because of lack of demand for their insulation skills.
We tend to be limited in our ideas regarding conservation programmes. People tend to think that putting an insulating quilt in the loft is enough or that stopping up the more obvious draughts is sufficient.
I should like to refer to an official publication entitled "Warmth kept in keeps heating costs down" prepared by the Housing Development Directorate of the Department of the Environment. It has a useful and simple diagram with the caption
Where does the heat escape?
About 25 per cent. escapes through the roof.
As I said, we tend to think that is the simplest, easiest and first place to tackle. It is the easiest place to deal with, so it is a good start.
About 15 per cent. of heat goes in draughts and 10 per cent goes through the windows. There is a vogue for double glazing, but in practical terms that is a more expensive method of saving fuel than other methods. There is the benefit of sound insulation, but in terms of saving fuel I suggest that double glazing is of dubious value.
About 15 per cent. of heat goes into the ground. That is the most difficult saving to make in buildings which are already constructed. We should do more about raising the requirements for ground insulation in new buildings.
The biggest waste—this is often not appreciated—is through the walls. In an average property, 35 per cent. of heat escapes through the walls. Having developed a greater awarness of the need to insulate, that indicates that we should direct attention to methods of dealing with wall insulation.
I hope that the Minister is aware of the advantages of cavity foam insulation in this connection. I fear that he may not be as aware as he might be of the damage that is being done to the cavity foam insulation programme by his right hon. and hon. Friends in the Department of the Enviroment. I should like to think that the Minister will devote some time in the Summer Recess to discussing with his colleagues in the Department of the Environment how to revitalise and speed up the programme of cavity foam insulation.
Cavity foam insulation, which is carried out by a variety of firms in a broadly similar way, is claimed to reduce heat loss through cavity walls by 70 per cent. to 75 per cent. That, by reference to my earlier figure of heat loss through the walls, would save over 25 per cent. of the total heating costs for an average detached or semi-detached cavity wall house of two storeys. Therefore, the pay-back period on the original outlay is about four years. That seems an extremely worthwhile investment.
The potential energy savings are very large. Calculations have been made by various organisations and figures have been quoted. I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the figures that I am about to quote, but they give an indication of the scale:
Heat from more than 1 million tons of coal, 100 million gallons of oil, 470 million


therms of gas and 8,000 million units of electricity—worth £200 million per annum—is unnecessarily pouring out from the cavity walls of 5 million centrally heated houses in the United Kingdom.
Of course, over the years more and more of the 8 million homes with cavity walls will have partial or full central heating and will be in need of cavity foam insulation.
In February, 1975 the Secretary of State for the Environment determined to treat cavity foam as a bridge between the walls, so counting it as a structural alteration, requiring relaxation of the building regulations prior to installation. There has been some question why this decision was reached, but the fact is that the result has been disastrous.
Once we had a situation in which foam insulation came under the building regulations we ran into problems of applying these regulations and applying the relaxations suggested by the Department. Various councils seem to have been rather obstructive in refusing the relaxations, and others in requiring an exceptional amount of paper work. In one case that has been drawn to my attention site locations marked on grid reference maps, topographical maps of the surrounding countryside depicting trees, a complete description of every wall, and the height of the building above sea level—and in triplicate—were required. In those circumstances it it not surprising that some people who would have been quite enthusiastic for such a fuel saving measure have been somewhat daunted by the realisation of the problems that they face.
Some building officers and some councils have given the misleading impression of the risks of cavity foam insulation. I suggest that Government-owned publications fall into the same category. When the Department of Energy publishes communications on the insulation of water tanks and roofs, it makes it all sound very attractive and simple, but cavity foam insulation is made to sound rather like a nasty disease—"every packet carries a Government health warning" sort of attitude. It gives the facts with a lot of qualifications, instead of pointing out that this is a very good idea even though there can be problems, and that if there are problems the consumer should consult and expert and have them put right.
I suggest to the Minister that there is an area in which we can make progress. There is a lot that the Department can do to encourage progress. I suggest that we make 1978 Insulation Year. This year has been Jubilee Year, and 1973 was Plant-a-Tree Year, so why should not 1978 be Insulation Year?
I do not expect the Minister to cover the question of the extent of encouragement given to insulation through improvement grants, but perhaps he could return to it in detail on another occasion. We need a determined and co-ordinated effort by the various Government Departments concerned, looking at ways of helping people with their fuel bills—particularly the elderly and disabled—by determining the best cost-effective way of using the money available.
While I would wish to continue to help those most in need, I believe that we should direct attention to ensuring that there is no easily avoidable waste of fuel which leads to people being unable to warm themselves and their home to the required extent.

11.21 p.m.

Mrs. Lynda Chalker: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for City of London and Westminster, South (Mr. Brooke) not only on bringing the subject before the House tonight but on his moving speech and on the way that he drew our attention to the many and varied problems. We are all concerned about misery, particularly in the case of the elderly and handicapped. We know that their number has now been supplemented by many other who cannot cope with the increased cost of heating their homes as adequately as they used to do.
The Minister will probably recall that this is my third year of participation in debates on this subject. In 1975 we started talking about this matter in the autumn. In 1976 we discussed it during the Summer Recess Adjournment debate, while this year I brought up the subject in the spring because I felt that it was important that all the Government Departments involved in the issue should be fully prepared before the winter for whatever may beset us. I had in mind, as the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) said, the fact that we have had a series of winters that were milder than those of 1972 and 1973.
During the Adjournment debate last year I said that I thought that it was most important that we should look at preventive measures. We have heard much discussion of that again tonight by the hon. Member for Perry Barr, and my hon. Friends the Members for Walsall, North (Mr. Hodgson), Hove (Mr. Sainsbury) and the City of London and Westminster, South.
The concern of the whole country on this issue is exemplified by this being the second debate on the issue this week. The first took place in the Lords on Monday when the matter of winter provision for the disadvantaged was thoroughly discussed.
In considering the matter we must remember by how much heating costs have risen during the past three years and five months. Earlier this year the Minister said that in that time there had been heating fuel price increases averaging:
50 per cent. for gas, nearly 70 per cent. for paraffin and heating oil, 100 per cent. for coal and coke, and nearly 125 per cent. for electricity."—[Official Report, 14th March 1977; Vol. 928, c. 187]
Since then gas prices have gone up by about 10 per cent., electricity tariffs are to go up yet again, and we know that various other heating costs either have already increased or will do so.
The problem will be very much with us during the coming winter. I am not yet convinced that we have explored all the avenues, but if the Minister can implement half of the suggestions that have been made in the House tonight we shall be well on the way to tackling the problem before the winter of 1977–78. My hon. Friend the Member for City of London and Westminster, South referred to the number of heating additions that have been awarded to recipients of supplementary benefits. It is more than double the number in 1974, and that shows one way in which we can get help to those most in need. However it is not getting to them all. We know that the Government recognise that, but additional attention must be turned to the subject during this recess so that we shall be prepared when the winter arrives. I shall always remember the Government's failure to produce the leaflet "Help with Heating Costs" before the end of January in 1976—although we had suggested

way back in the summer of 1975 that information should be given out in due time to allow people to budget and prepare. We do not want to see that repeated.
There is a further difficulty. Many people are in receipt of rent and rate rebates and therefore not on supplementary benefit and entitled to the heating additions, which will go up in November together with other social security benefits. Even more worrying are the comments that have been made by the Chairman of the Supplementary Benefits Commission, who has said that three-quarters of pensioners questioned in a random sample were unaware that they were entitled to additional heating help. What proposals does the Minister have for getting information to these people in time so that they do not run up big bills this winter?
We know from a recent report of Action Research that disabled people, especially those in wheelchairs, have extra heating costs that are dramatically higher than the bills of those who can move freely. The disabled cannot keep their bodies warm by the movement that we all accept naturally.
We also know from the annual report under Section 124 of the Social Security Act 1975 that for those receiving invalidity and other national insurance benefits, the increased heating costs are in proportion to the increase included in the index of retail prices for an average family. The Government should look at the additional heating costs of the disabled and handicapped for whom national insurance benefits do not come through as addition benefits. These people cannot benefit from the 25 per cent. discount on electricity prices during the winter quarter because they are not family income supplement beneficiaries or supplementary benefit recipients.
Progress has been made by many local offices of the Supplementary Benefits Commission on exceptional needs payments, but these are shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. Money has been spent on heating that has not been accounted for because the people involved do not realise how they are using their heating. I hope that the Minister will consider this problem.
The local DHSS offices will arrange to collect, say, 50p a week for arrears that may have been built up by supplementary benefit claimants and will deduct a further sum from the benefit and pay it directly to the fuel board. That arrangement has been in operation since February 1976. A problem arose during the spring. The Department makes lump sum payments to the fuel boards and some supplementary benefits recipients were increasing their usage, but not having greater sums deducted from their benefit. Because of the intervals between payments by the Department to the boards and because of the increased usage, it has become possible, despite the code of practice, for there to be a possibility of disconnection. This should not happen if the scheme is working properly. It should be avoided.
This situation highlights some of the interesting points made by the hon. Member for Perry Barr about the Birmingham scheme. We shall examine the figures on that scheme with great interest. We are concerned that where there is no relationship, because of the fixed charge, between the amount paid and the usage problems may develop for the fuel boards unless a better relationship can be achieved on a month-by-month, rather than a quarterly, basis.
It is estimated that last winter local authority social service departments spent £1 million helping the elderly and disabled who were ineligible for any Government scheme. That is not a large sum in comparison with some of those that we have been discussing, but it shows that there is a need to help those who slip through the net.
I believe that families with children could be better helped under Section 1 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1963. Local authorities have the power under the Act to pay special amounts where children, especially small children, are at risk or where there are bronchial troubles in a family. That is something about which many local authorities are not well pleased. We ask the Minister to consider what can be done to ensure that families with children at risk that experience difficulty with heating costs are aware of this provision.
We could talk for a long while about the results of non-payment. It is

pleasing to note that the number of disconnections for electricity users has reduced in the past year. That may be in part due to the Government's scheme for the one-quarter deduction on the winter quarter bill. However, I regret that many elderly people did not understand that scheme. Only 57 per cent. of the potential beneficiaries actually took up that scheme. Parliamentary answers indicate that the cost of the scheme will be between £11 million and £12 million in total, £1 million of that being for administrative costs. We feel that the scheme could do a great deal better. Many of my hon. Friends have referred to its being restricted to electricity users, and a quarter of all elderly people heat by solid fuel compared with only 17 per cent. who heat with electricity.
Help the Aged has recently told us that it reckons that there are more than 2 million pensioners who live in heat conditions that, if they were working, would require instant prosecution under the Offices, Shops and Railway Premises Act 1963. We know from the 1972 survey that about 55 per cent. of pensioners' living rooms were below the minimum temperatures required by that Act. Hypothermia may not be a large problem but it is a contributory problem to the nightmare faced by some old people. If it contributes to more elderly people requiring hospital care and expensive hospital beds, whether they be £40, £50, £60 or £70 a week, we should be tackling the problem at source and not spending the money when pensioners are ill, unhappy and in hospital. That is a preventive role that we need to adopt.
We have seen much progress made in the past few years towards meeting this problem but the greatest lost opportunity seems to be insulation. Despite Government strictures—for example, the "Switch Off Something" campaign and reminders about energy conservation—there has been a failure to adopt an energetic insulation programme. The job creation programme, thanks to the energies of Friends of the Earth and others, has led to improved insulation in about 68,000 properties. We know that this year the Department of the Environment, after pressure, has increased the mandatory standards of thermal insulation that are required under building regulations for new properties and those homes where


there is a grant application for roof work. That we welcome, but it is a slow start. If the answer in column 849 of Hansard, House of Lords, of 25th July is correct, it seems that 80,000 homes were better insulated at a cost of £25 each. It appears that for relatively small sums we can do a great deal more on insulation.
Although some of my figures differ from those of my hon. Friend the Member for Hove, I am told by reliable sources in the building industry that in the average uninsulated semi-detached house 70 per cent. of all heat produced is wasted, whether it goes through the roof, the walls, the floors or the windows. That is waste that must not continue.

The Under-Secretary of State for Energy (Dr. John A. Cunningham): I have hesitated to interrupt as there is a debate later—perhaps I should say earlier —on energy conservation. However, the hon. Lady and a number of her hon. Friends have persistently made comments about house insulation. They are aware that money is available to local authorities under the job creation programme They are aware that massive discounts on the cost of insulation materials have been encouraged by the Government. How many speeches have they made asking Conservative-controlled local authorities to get on with the job?

Mrs. Chalker: For my part, I can only answer in respect of my own local authority, where the issue has been discussed on many occasions. I hope to see that local authority appear in the next list of local authorities that have taken up the Government's scheme. I regret to say it was missing from the list published the week before last.
However, we know that only 61 schemes have been actually approved. Another 23 are in the pipeline, 19 have been withdrawn and one has been rejected. But this is still small as compared with the total number of local authorities. Although the Minister was attempting to be highly critical, I would welcome the spur to local authorities to get on with the job and take advantage of the money that is being provided. If this debate does one good thing, it may be to spur on more of them, and each

hon. Member can take up the matter with his local authority.
Will the Minister, through his hon. Friend, be able to tell us when the promised circular to local authorities will be sent out? Circular 8/76 of August last year is a little old now. We know that a new one is coming. It would aid the Minister's campaign if the circular was sent out in very good time for councils to progress with this work as soon as possible.
We have over 6·7 million accessible lofts with no insulation, and a further 5·5 million have inadequate insulation. Four million of our hot-water tanks are uninsulated and over 8 million are inadequately insulated.
That is the size of the problems with which we are dealing. That is why we have all welcomed the efforts of many voluntary bodies. The "information kit" produced recently by the Leeds Anti-Freeze Campaign to tell people how to keep warm also not only deals with heating costs, how to pay bills and how not to be disconnected; it tells people how to do something positive about conserving energy.
All these efforts will come to nought if we do not have adequate co-ordination of Government, and that means the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security, the Under-Secretary of State for Energy and their hon. Friends at the Department of the Environment, because it is in that sphere that most, perhaps, is needed to be done anew, whereas in other spheres it will be reminders and advertising.
Roof insulation should be regarded as a basic amenity for improvement grant purposes, and not just as a useful addition. We hope to see that changed. Wall insulation ought to be made eligible for grant aid. We hope that there will be an insulation scheme for all old-age-pensioner dwellings and that the Government will re-stimulate the use of the job creation programme and voluntary schemes to identify and then insulate homes of the elderly and the handicapped. There needs to be a little concerted effort and all available resources must be used.
In addition, I hope that the Plymouth project on 37 homes to see what energy savings may result from insulation will be extended, because such a project in


other places around the country would help to engender interest in the whole question of insulation and the saving of heating costs.
Back in the sphere of the DHSS, I hope that the Minister will reconsider a suggestion that I put to him last August. It is that local authorities throughout the country should establish registers of those at risk. This has not been done, except on a piecemeal basis. We suggested last August that discreet routine checks might be made, to prevent illness and to prevent the take-up of hospital beds, thereby avoiding many of the hours spent today by workers in local authority social service departments in running around to stop the supplies of pensioners and others being cut off. If the Department were to back a "risk-disc" system, or a code attached to every pensioner's bills, it would help. At present, this scheme is still not being implemented automatically. Many pensioners could avoid the heartache that they suffer when a big bill comes in, and many have not yet understood that they are protected between the months of October and March by the code of payment.
We are grateful for this opportunity to put on record in the summer, when many have no thought of their winter heating costs, just what needs to be done. Above all, I hope that it will be a real preventive campaign—preventive of illness and preventive of those tragedies that can happen when people do not realise the use they are making of fuel.
I also hope that we shall start anew an insulation scheme. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Jenkin) told me before I came to the Dispatch Box, perhaps the best code for us all to adopt is "Insulate in '78".

11.46 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. Eric Deakins): I am grateful to the hon. Member for City of London and Westminster, South (Mr. Brooke) for choosing this subject for debate and also for the entirely nonpartisan way in which he introduced it. Indeed, the hon. Gentleman's whole speech was on that basis.
A number of points have been made and I shall do my best to deal with them, but I must point out that this subject

covers more than one Department. Where there are points that are of interest and concern to those Departments I shall naturally draw them to the attention of my right hon. and hon. Friends. That particularly applies to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Energy, who has been present during the debate, and my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment.
The dramatic increases in fuel prices over the last few years have hit us all, but in particular they have hit the more disadvantaged sections of society, such as the millions of people over pension age. Our debate has concentrated almost entirely on those people.
No one has been able completely to escape the consequences of fuel price rises, but most of us are able to take certain steps to minimise their effect. We can reduce our consumption, install some measures of insulation, change to a cheaper and more efficient heating system and so on. In short, we have some opportunity to adjust to the new conditions, to choose the way we react. But for the more vulnerable social groups these opportunities and choices do not exist. They cannot afford to install insulation or to buy a better heating system.
Many who live in rented accommodation could not get such a system installed even if they wanted to and could afford one. Indeed, they might have no control whatsoever over their fuel consumption. For others there may be a simple and brutal choice: to spend more on heating and less on something else which may be equally essential—switching on the fire may mean going without a proper meal. A choice between necessities is really no choice at all.
The problem of what has been termed fuel poverty is one that has to be attacked on two fronts: first we must ensure that poorer people can pay for the fuel they require and, secondly, we must see to it that everyone—particularly those most at risk fom the cold, such as the elderly and the increasing number of the elderly who are very old indeed—get enough warmth.
On the financial front, we have taken several important measures. First and foremost we have made great improvements to the social security provision.


Between October 1973 and our last up-rating in November the rates of pensions and other long-term benefits rose by 97 per cent. Prices in that period rose by only 72 per cent., and thus the real value of long-term benefits increased by 15 per cent. This November, at a cost of £1,500 million, we are increasing benefit rates by over 14 per cent. and this should at least restore the purchasing power they had at the last uprating.
In addition to the increases in benefit rates we have greatly widened the scope and coverage of the social security scheme. Particularly in respect of disabled people. That was a point of concern particularly to the hon. Member for Wallasey (Mrs Chalker). Moreover, we have introduced three new non-contributory benefits specifically for disabled people and their families: mobility allowance, invalid care allowance and noncontributory invalidity pension. A fourth benefit—housewives' non-contributory pension—will come into effect in November.
The new benefits that we have introduced and the large upratings that we have undertaken represent concrete assistance to over 12 million people—the most vulnerable sections of the community. Benefit increases take account of increases in the retail price index. Therefore, to the extent that fuel price rises are reflected in that index, beneficiaries have been protected. We know, however, that poorer people spend a higher proportion of their income on fuel than those who are better off, and we have therefore provided extra help for them directly related to their fuel costs.
Last November we increased by about 27 per cent. the rates of supplementary benefit heating additions. This increase means that these additions have gone up 133 per cent. since 1973 and this coming November they will be going up another 14 per cent. Heating additions provide up to £2·10 a week now and will provide up to £2·40 from November for supplementary beneficiaries who need extra heating because they are ill or infirm or because their home is difficult to heat. Those beneficiaries who have to bear the extra costs of central heating can also get a weekly addition. Moreover, the number of supplementary beneficiaries

getting a heating addition has more than doubled in the last three years. Well over 1 million claimants—including more than half of those on supplementary pension—now get them, and the Supplementary Benefits Commission is trying to ensure that every claimant who is eligible receives one. We are not trying to save money by not giving adequate publicity.
The Commission also uses its discretionary powers to make lump-sum exceptional needs payments towards fuel bills in certain circumstances. A payment may be made, for example, where a severe illness, or some other emergency which could not have been foreseen, has resulted in the claimant's having to spend the money that he had saved to meet his fuel bills. As well as helping with fuel bills, the Commission can make lump-sum payments to help people get the most from their heating systems. It can, for instance, provide for the repair or replacement of heating appliances, and for simple measures of insulation such as draught-proofing, floor coverings and curtains.
But the Commission's discretion is not unlimited. In exercising it the Commission must have regard to the constraints put upon it in legislation by Parliament and restrict such payments to cases where there are exceptional circumstances. Decisions in these cases, because they involve questions of hardship, cannot be easily made, and the criteria for reaching them can always be questioned. The Commission, however, believes that the criteria should be as widely known as possible and it has set them out in some detail in publications such as the Supplementary Benefits Handbook.
To help in those cases where a lump-sum payment for a fuel bill would not be justified, the Commission has agreed some arrangements with the fuel authorities. Under these arrangements, which began in February 1976, people likely to suffer hardship—the elderly, the sick and disabled, and families with young children—would not be disconnected if part of their benefit was paid direct to the fuel boards to cover current consumption together with a small amount—normally 50p—towards the arrears. If after two years there are still arrears outstanding the Commission will consider clearing these by a lump-sum payment. The hon.


Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Hodgson) made a point about people on supplementary benefit not getting the advantage of the discount arrangements. I was not aware of this and I shall take it up with the Commission and write to him about it. The hon. Member for Wallasey also mentioned it and I shall write to her.
The heating additions, exceptional needs payments and "fuel direct" arrangements provided by the Commission cannot be the perfect answer for every claimant in difficulty with his fuel bills. Nevertheless, they do offer welcome assistance for many supplementary beneficiaries, who are among the poorer people in our community.
The subject of the Birmingham HARP —heating and rent payment—schemes was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker). The issue here is the discretionary payments for extra heating made by the Supplementary Benefits Commission. As I have said, these are normally paid weekly at one of three standard rates according to the claimant's state of health or if he has special difficulty in heating his accommodation. Alternatively, they are paid if he has central heating at one of three standard rates according to the number of rooms.
Birmingham Corporation's HARP scheme, introduced in 1973, was an imaginative scheme to assist the Corporation's pensioner tenants to pay for their fuel week by week and so to relieve them of any anxiety about budgeting or disconnection. A tariff of charges was fixed according to the size of the home and the number of people in it, and charges were collected with the rent. The money collected was pooled to pay for all the bills, which went to the corporation rather than the tenants.
The Supplementary Benefits Commission agreed to treat its claimants in this scheme in a special way. Rather than pay standard heating additions, it paid the amount by which the HARP charge exceeded the notional figure for heating costs normally used in cases where a rent net of heating had to be calculated because the rent includes an unspecified amount for fuel. When the HARP scheme started, its charges were such that this special treatment resulted in a fairly

small number of heating additions, and these were at rates broadly comparable with the standard additions. Since then, however, the HARP charges have gone up considerably—fuel prices went up, a measure of support from the rates had to be withdrawn, and pensioners' fuel consumption was above the expected levels. The heating additions have gone up too, both in number and amount.
All the supplementary pensioners in the HARP scheme now get a special addition, and the amounts range from about £1·50 to over £4 a week. By comparison, the lowest standard rate of central heating addition is currently 35p and the highest £1·40; the lowest rate on health grounds is 70p and the highest £2·10. What is more, the increasing HARP charges led many people not on supplementary benefit to leave the scheme, so that now, of those who remain, some two-thirds are supplementary beneficiaries.
The Commission has carefully considered the question of continuing its support, but concluded last year that, in the interests of fairness to other beneficiaries not getting special help to this very considerable extent, it would have to withdraw. The details of how to achieve this withdrawal, how to replace the special additions with the appropriate standard addition in each case, have taken a considerable time, and have been discussed between officials of the Commission and of the Corporation's housing department.
So as not to make the changeover too sudden, the Commission proposes to achieve it in two stages, the first to coincide with this year's uprating of benefits in November, the second with next year's uprating. The special additions will be reduced this November by £1 for single people, £1·50 for couples. The overall effect is that the uprating will result in a smaller increase in benefit for people in HARP—but this was felt to be preferable to an actual reduction in benefit at some other time of the year. At next year's uprating, any amount by which the special additions still exceed the appropriate standard addition will be withdrawn in the same way.
My hon. Friend criticised the manner in which this was being handled, but I should have thought that he would have


been even more critical if we had done it at any other time than when the additions were being put up in the uprating. These tenants would then have suffered loss of income.
All pensioners affected will receive a letter informing them of these changes and their effect. My hon. Friend was also critical of the draft of that letter. The letter on the subject of HARP is going out from the SBC to its claimants. It is going out not to everybody in the HARP scheme but to those on supplementary benefit. It was shown in draft form to the housing department in Birmingham and some amendments were accepted, but in the last analysis it must be for the SBC to decide what it says.
My hon. Friend was also critical of the letter sent by my right hon. Friend to Birmingham Members of Parliament. I do not wish to weary the House by reading more than one or two extracts—

Mr. Rooker: My hon. Friend has read most of it.

Mr. Deakins: I have given the details of the scheme. My hon. Friend underestimates his own powers. Any hon. Member who is capable of sitting through the Finance Bill is well capable of understanding fairly complicated issues.
Let me give two examples of what was said:
The Commission propose achieving their withdrawal from the HARP schemes in two stages. At a first stage at the time of this year's uprating in November, the special HARP additions will be reduced by a maximum of £1 for single people and £1.50 for married couples.
There is then a paragraph explaining why that is a maximum, and I shall not go into detail on it. It continues later:
These first-stage reductions will still, in many cases, leave in payment heating additions greater than those to which HARP members would be entitled under the normal rules. It will therefore be necessary to have a second stage.
and so on.
I think that my right hon. Friend was right to write to hon. Members. I do not think that letter could have been written in any other fashion because the HARP scheme is undoubtedly a complicated one.
My hon. Friend also said that he had replied to my right hon. Friend's invitation to meet the Birmingham hon. Members. That is news to me, but I accept what my hon. Friend says. However, no other Birmingham Member has responded to my right hon. Friend's invitation. I draw no conclusions from that lack of response, but it is a little harsh on my right hon. Friend to suggest that he is trying to force the scheme through against the wishes of Birmingham hon. Members when they have a chance to meet him. I shall speak to my right hon. Friend about my hon. Friend's approach, because if he knows that my hon. Friend wishes to see him I am sure that something can be arranged.
The Commission did not reach its decision lightly. It has sought to spread its impact. I must stress above all that its decision was not taken on grounds of costs. Its overriding concern has been fairness to other pensioners throughout the country, over whom Birmingham's pensioner tenants on supplementary benefit were enjoying a substantial and increasing advantage.
I turn to the hon. Member for Wallasey's point about publicity. The Commission is trying to ensure that the help it can give is know both to everyone who might need it and to those people who offer advice and assistance to the poorer groups. In May it published a new edition of its handbook, to which I have already referred. More than 30,000 copies of this handbook have been distributed, and I believe that every hon. Member has received one. In addition, it is bringing up to date its leaflet "Help with Heating Costs", which sets out in simple terms what help it provides. Half a million copies of this leaflet are being printed and will be available in November.
As well as the strictly social security provisions, we introduced last winter the electricity discount scheme, which provided for people getting family income supplement or supplementary benefit to receive a 25 per cent. discount of one winter quarter's electricity bill. As my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced on 15th July, a similar scheme will be operated this coming winter. Experience of last winter's scheme is being evaluated to see whether any changes will be necessary for the new


scheme. Further details, including the starting date, will be announced in due course.
Nearly every hon. Member who has spoken has pressed me on the limitations of the scheme. Far be it from me or any Minister to defend the scheme as being the perfect answer. It has limitations, on which detailed points have been made. The hon. Member for City of London and Westminster, South wanted it extended to solid fuel. The hon. Member for Walsall, North wanted it extended to all fuels, and a number of other criticisms were made. I shall bring the points that were made to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy, but I cannot undertake that the scheme will be extended, for reasons that will be obvious.
I turn to methods of payment. Recent years have seen not merely the rapid increase in fuel prices but another phenomenon, whose consequences are perhaps not so generally appreciated. That is the trend away from coin-in-the-slot meters towards quarterly credit meters. For the majority of people this trend has been a welcome one, since it is far more convenient to clear the bill with one cheque every few months than to have to rummage around for a few coins every time the meter runs out. But for the poorer people, many of whom receive their income on a weekly basis, this trend can be anything but a happy one, for it means not only that they must face increased fuel costs but that they have to budget efficiently for their consumption over a relatively long period—a period in which they may have no real idea of the amount of fuel they are using.
There are several ways in which we have tried to help poorer people overcome the problems of budgeting. In December the fuel authorities announced a code of practice on fuel bills which sets out to draw attention to the easy payment and other methods by which people can be helped to budget for their large quarterly bills and provides that needy pensioners will not be disconnected during the winter months. The operation of this voluntary code is being closely monitored by area electricity consultative councils and the national and regional gas consumer councils. The industries are keeping the Government closely informed

about this operation. As a Government, we have a strong interest in it.
The industries have a wide range of easy payment schemes, including budget and stamp schemes, which they are publicising widely. They have also agreed that in cases where other payment methods are not appropriate they will provide any consumer on request with a pre-payment meter, provided it is safe and practical. Furthermore, they are exploring the possibility of developing and introducing meters operated by self-destroying tokens, which would overcome the problems, such as the possibility of theft, that are associated with coin meters.
I turn to the question of insulation, which was mentioned by a number of hon. Members. Improved cash provisions will have only a very limited effect so long as many people, particularly older people, live in cold and draughty houses —not merely at the seaside—where there is little or no insulation and where switching on the fire may produce a big increase in the fuel bill but very little extra warmth.
We have therefore taken steps to encourage the insulation of housing in both the public and the private sectors. The job creation programme is being used to operate schemes for home insulation particularly for the houses of the elderly and disabled. By the end of last month 86 local authorities were involved in schemes in which over 80,000 houses had been insulated at a total cost approaching £1 million. Furthermore, we are providing local authorities with a subsidy to help with the cost of installing roof insulation in their existing houses. Where this is done for the elderly or disabled, the grant is payable without any other work having to be carried out. And in the private sector, an elderly or disabled person who wishes to install roof insulation can get an improvement grant for that purpose.
The hon. Member for City of London and Westminster, South asked about insulation grants. Although this is basically a matter for the Department of the Environment, I understand that a recent circular has given local authorities discretion to provide, under the Housing Act 1974, improvement grants towards the cost of roof insulation in some circumstances if an elderly or disabled person


has special needs. Applications do not now have to be approved centrally.
There has been comment on the state of the insulation industry in view of the numbers of small firms in it. I note that point and will pass it on. A number of other British industries consist of small units. Frankly we do not know what the appropriate remedy is to help such industries improve in efficiency.
The hon. Member for Hove (Mr. Sainsbury) made a number of points, not all of which are the direct concern or responsibility of my Department. I shall pass them on to the relevant Minister. I was interested in his remarks on cavity wall insulation. This is a question which is facing me personally at present as I try to decide whether to have it installed. There is a great deal of conflicting advice on the matter, and I may have to take advice from the Department of Energy on it.
The Department of Energy is conducting, with other Departments, a major review of possible further action to promote energy conservation. This includes consideration of ways to secure economic levels of insulation in building. Moreover, last winter several case studies were carried out by the Department of the Environment in conjunction with the Research Institute for Consumer Affairs to determine what improvements could be made in heating arrangements for old people. The results of these case studies will be published in a booklet before next winter. The implications for existing systems—for example, improvement grants—will be considered carefully.
We are also acting to alert everyone to the dangers that the elderly face from the cold. In meetings and through the professional journals the DHSS will be reminding health and personal social services staff to watch out for old people suffering from the effects of cold. Moreover, the Health Education Council produced last year a leaflet "Keeping Warm in Winter", which contains practical advice on ways to keep warm, and this winter it will again be publicising the leaflet and conducting a campaign in the Press and on television alerting elderly people to the dangers of cold and reminding others in the community that old people are at risk in winter.
Then there is the good-neighbour campaign, launched last November by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services. This campaign has been a great success and we have had reports from all over the country showing how voluntary action has been stimulated. There was a remarkable demand for campaign literature. For example, over ⅓ million leaflets were distributed in response to specific requests from voluntary organisations, local authorities, Churches and many others. The leaflet included information on help that could be given with simple practical tasks including making sure that the sick, the elderly, the handicapped, the disabled and others in trouble and difficulty were kept warm in winter. The campaign is being continued and developed and the second phase will be launched by the Secretary of State this autumn.
The campaign has developed as a partnership between the Secretary of State, voluntary and statutory organisations, professional associations and trade unions. A small independent campaign secretariat, based at the Personal Social Services Council and financed by the Department, is being set up to act as a focal point for national publicity. The second phase of the campaign will be launched in the autumn.
The Government are continuing to study these problems urgently, particularly in the light of recommendations from the House of Commons Select Committee on Nationalised Industries and from the National Consumer Council in the Report on "Paying for Fuel", to which we replied in May, and in the Fuel Payments Review, better known as the Oakes Report. We have already done a conserable amount, as I think I have shown, within the current severe constraints on expenditure. I hope that hon. Members will understand from what I have said that the Government share their concern over these problems and are determined to do everything possible to alleviate them.
These are indeed formidable problems that we have been discussing tonight. The debate has been valuable, even if we have taken up perhaps rather more than our fair share of time. Nevertheless, I do not think that any other topics which will be raised can exceed in importance the subject that we have discussed.
The protection that we are giving is not all that we, or our critics, would wish it to be, but the various measures that I have outlined, improvements in the coverage of the social security scheme, increases in benefit rates, special action such as the discount scheme, action on methods of payment, the fact that increases in fuel prices are now coming into line with prices in general and the encouragement of voluntary initiative through the good-neighbour campaign, are all playing their part. We shall continue to make improvements as and when resources permit.

Orders of the Day — MANPOWER SERVICES (WALES)

12.10 a.m.

Mr. Wyn Roberts: My purpose in initiating this debate is to draw attention to the unemployment problem in Wales. We heard earlier this week that the total had now reached 91,988 —8·8 per cent. of all employees. It is a staggering figure. When we were in office I remember being berated by the Labour Party when the unemployment total was about half the present figure. It will now be said that this month's increase of 12,366 is due largely to the school leavers, who account for about two-thirds of the increase, and that they will secure places during the summer and will disappear off the register in due course. This is probably true, but the increase of 2,832 in the total number of unemployed excluding school leavers augurs very badly, especially at this time of year, and the underlying trend is deeply disturbing.
The number of unfilled vacancies, at 6,684, offers very little consolation. The figure has increased by about 1,000 over the year, but this month there was a fall of 400 in the number of unfilled vacancies notified to employment officers and jobcentres, and future prospects are not at all good. I dread to think what the situation will be in the early months of next year, when unemployment is notoriously at its very worst.
An impression is given that to be unemployed these days is somehow not as tragic as it used to be. There is a modicum of truth in this. Nevertheless, we would be greatly at fault if we were at all complacent about it. Although the financial situation of the unemployed person may be very much better than it

was, it is still tragic to be without work, especially for the young, some of whom are now getting quite desperate. I know some young people—I am sure that you do, too, Mr. Speaker—who left university last year and are still without a job. This is very tragic.
The Manpower Services Commission realises this only too well and in its latest report says this:
Prolonged unemployment has a particularly damaging effect on young people since it reduces the normal opportunities for them to enter working life, to gain practical experience of work, and perhaps to undertake training.
The Commission is well aware of the problem. I think that the Government are, too, and so are we on the Opposition Benches. None the less, we feel that what is being done is not adequate to meet the desperate situation which many young people face today.
What arc we to say? It has all been said before. We have the Government's special measures to deal with unemployment, executed through the Manpower Services Commission, and there is no doubt that these measures have created jobs. But have they created jobs in sufficient abundance? Has a truly useful purpose been served by the commission itself?
This is what the Secretary of State for Wales said on 4th July:
What should be recognised is the efforts which the Government have made to ameliorate unemployment. Without the catalogue of measures that we have carried out, there would have been 37,000 people in Wales without jobs. That is the achievement of the temporary employment subsidy, the work creation schemes and all the other measures introduced by this Government, and it is evidence of our care, out compassion and our understanding of this major problem."—[Official Report, 4th July 1977; Vol. 934, c. 1017.]
But we have to reconcile that with the total number of unemployed in Wales, which is quite out of scale with anything that has been achieved by way of job creation by this Government. Although we may congratulate the Government on creating those jobs which they have created, we must nevertheless emphasise to them the extent of their failure and the extent of the problem which they must face in the total number of unemployed today.
There was a time when the social contract dealt with these matters and actually


specified the reduction required in unemployment, but the latest document says nothing about reducing unemployment. The whole question is left wide open.
I have copies of the exchange of correspondence between the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Liberal Party, and I shall quote first from the letter from the Leader of the Liberal Party, apparently dictating to the Prime Minister:
The Government, in tackling unemployment, which must be a top economic and social priority, will place particular emphasis on the problem of school leavers, and the potential for increased employment among small businesses. The Government has undertaken to investigate urgently further short-term measures to reduce teacher unemployment. We have urged the Government to initiate an all-party appeal to employers and trade unions to use the employment opportunities which are currently offered to them to help young people with emphasis on apprenticeship and other forms of training.
That was the Leader of the Liberal Party writing to the Prime Minister on 27th July. I think that I am in honour bound to read the Prime Minister's reaction to that letter. He said:
I reaffirm that the fight against inflation and unemployment will continue as a first priority, and I welcome the support of the Liberal Party in Parliament for policies to secure those objectives.
Nevertheless, when it considers those statements by the Leader of the Liberal Party and the Prime Minister, the House will, I am sure, feel that in present circumstances they are quite inadequate.
They certainly do not meet the demands of the present situation. The Minister will recall how the Conservatives were berated when unemployment was less than half the current figure. How does he answer for the present position? It is not covered by the social contract. The latest document says nothing very much about it.
I know that the Minister will always press us to say what we would do. I have great pleasure in telling him what we would do. We feel very strongly that if only we were able to relax the conditions for employment in Wales now we could cure the unemployment problem that is afflicting us.
What then, shall we do? We shall reduce direct taxation and restore a single positive rate of value added tax.

We shall increase the VAT threshold to at least £10,000 and see that it is adjusted to take account of future inflation. We shall remove the present injustices of the 714 certificate scheme for the self-employed. We shall seek to reduce the volume of form-filling and simplify the planning procedures, which are such a handicap for firms seeking to establish themselves or to develop. We shall revise, particularly for the small firms, all those laws which, although designed to promote employment, have the effect of creating unemployment. In other words, we shall free industry to allow it to create the jobs that we so desperately need.

12.23 a.m.

Sir Anthony Meyer: After a series of very late night sittings, it is encouraging to find my hon. Friend the Member for Conway (Mr. Roberts) here, in the small hours of the morning, upholding the interests of the people of Wales, and in particular the interests of the people of North Wales, who are indeed very hard-hit by the present appalling rate of unemployment which has settled like a blight on the Principality.
I must say a few words as the parliamentary representative of a constituency that includes Rhyl, which, as the Minister knows only too well, is in the unhappy situation of being excluded from the Welsh development area and is denied even those crumbs of comfort which accrue to the rest of the Principality through the operation of the Government's regional aid programmes.
Indeed, we in Rhyl feel very much as if we are bereft of all help. We are excluded from the development area. We have been refused any help whatever by the Government with the biggest single project in the area, designed to expand the facilities of our principal industry, the tourist industry—in other words, the Rhyl Sun Centre. It has not only been denied any help by the Government; the Government used their best endeavours to bring the work on it to a halt. Where they failed, building agitators have succeeded. But one of the consequences has been that the borough council, having had to commit all this locally determined expenditure on one project to avoid disaster, finds itself so short of cash that it is in grave difficulties in developing the one area in Rhyl that is reserved for industrial development.
I shall shortly be getting in touch with the Minister to ask whether there is any way in which he can use his good offices to break what appears to be a bottleneck here. At any rate, I am getting reports that the Marsh Road industrial estate programme is being held up because of a temporary cash shortage. The Government should make good their words and use their good offices with the Welsh Development Agency, or what-have-you, to ensure that this difficulty is surmounted.
I do not wish to speak only of the problems of Rhyl. In common with all hon. Members representing Welsh constituencies, to me these terrible unemployment statistics represent people who cannot get jobs and their children who see little or no prospect of finding employment when they leave school. If, when a boy leaves school, he has little prospect of finding a job for a year or so, it seems like a lifetime. This has a profoundly depressing effect on all of us.
My hon. Friend the Member for Conway was, if anything, over-indulgent in his attitude towards the Government's policies on employment. I give the Government credit for good intentions. I know that they are as concerned as are the Opposition about unemployment. I do not suggest that the Government's policies alone have produced the unemployment figures that we have today. Of course it is not their policies alone that have created the problem. Every country has a serious unemployment problem. But I do suggest that the Government's policies have resulted in Britain's unemployment problem being more persistent and harder to get rid of than that of any of our EEC partners and of most of our competitors in the rest of the world. One has only to look at the relative inflation rates in Britain and in the countries with which we have to compete to realise that this is only the beginning of a story that will become more tragic as time goes on.
In the light of that situation I find it hard to accept that the Government are doing their best to deal with the problem. I am sure that the motives behind the job creation programme are entirely honourable, but I cannot rid myself of the idea that, because of its cost, which has to be borne by the rest of industry, in the long run the programme could do more

harm than good. I believe that the jobs that are created as a result of the programme would otherwise have been created by an unshackled private industry that did not have to bear these additional burdens.
I believe that if we are to tackle the long-term problem of unemployment that besets us there must be a major leap in imagination. We must face the fact that, in order to create stable employment in an expanding economy, we must go through a phase of a very large loss of jobs in the unproductive sector. If that sounds like a paradox, I suggest that we turn it the other way round and imagine the result of accepting the policies of the extreme Left, of vastly extending the number of jobs in the unproductive sector. The Tribune Group claims that we can solve our unemployment problem by making pretty well everybody civil servants or employees of nationalised industries. When we reflect that this country must earn its living in the world, the nonsense of that solution appears immediately.
We must face the need to make massive reductions of employment in the non-productive sector in order to release resources for employment into the productive sector. When f speak of the productive sector I do not just mean the private sector. Many productive jobs are in the public sector. There must be a massive transfer from non-productive to productive.
This leads to a more awkward conclusion. Even if this is done, the whole world is moving towards an era in which full employment will cease to be an automatic. On both sides of the House we must think in terms of work sharing, earlier retirement and a three-day working week. Last time we had a three-day working week, production was rather higher than in the preceding four-and-a-half and five-day working weeks. We must move towards the three-day working week, with much higher productivity during those three days.
A three-day working week must not become an excuse by some unions to pay people more for doing less. If that occurs, disaster will follow. We must be prepared for a major reorganisation of attitudes towards work sharing, and it is idle to look towards the Labour Party for this imaginative leap. The Government are incapable of fresh thinking on this subject.
Only the Conservative Party can provide any new thinking here. The policies of the Government are leading us downhill steadily, and until they go there is no hope whatever for my constituents.

12.33 a.m.

Mr. Ian Grist: This debate must be somewhat of an embarrassment to the Minister. At the end of a similar debate in 1972 on the same subject at a similar time of year, he said that the unemployment figures of 51,000 in Wales were "tragic". He told us at some length of the effects of this tragedy on his constituents and the Welsh people generally. I look forward to hearing how he describes the present unemployment figure which is 40,000 higher than it was at that time.
We are discussing these appalling unemployment figures at a time when the Prime Minister is telling us that all the economic indicators are set fair. It is very odd to me if they are so fair, because the Labour Party throughout its existence has had the rallying cry of "Jobs for the People".
As his ministerial colleague the hon. Member for Rhondda (Mr. Jones) said in the last debate on 2nd August 1972:
For most of Wales unemployment and Tory Governments have become synonymous"[Official Report, 2nd August, 1972; vol. 842, c. 736].
I think that there is a slightly different synonym now.
My hon. Friend the Member for Conway (Mr. Roberts) mentioned the global figures in Wales, and my hon. Friend the Member for Flint, West (Sir A. Myer) spoke of his constituency. I shall quote some figures for the part of Wales that is supposed to be the most prosperous—my own constituency. Male unemployment in the Cardiff travel-to-work area is 9·4 per cent. In South Glamorgan, which is supposed to be the most prosperous county of Wales, the unemployment figure is 3,000 higher than last year. A total of 843 boys and 739 girls are out of work in Cardiff alone. One must remember also that more than 300 of those boys are last year's school leavers.
Those figures indicate that two-thirds of this year's school leavers in Cardiff have yet to find a job. For the total number of 1,081 Cardiff school leavers

who are out of work there are 88 vacancies. In the Vale of Glamorgan, in the same county, there are nine vacancies for 469 unemployed school leavers.
No doubt the Minister will talk about the Government's rather futile gestures of conscience—the job creation scheme, the work experience scheme, and other such schemes. In South Glamorgan there are 253 people employed in work experience schemes and 78 in job creation schemes. That is what those futile gestures have meant to my county.
What has been the cause of all this? There is the world economic recession, but my hon. Friend the Member for Flint, West has given perfectly good reasons why the unemployment figures in this country are worse—and this is a long-standing position that is likely to continue—than those of other EEC and Western European countries. Government action, such as the Employment Protection Act, has exacerbated the problem, particularly for smaller firms.
If the Minister talks to employers in small firms he will find out the truth. The Minister and his colleagues must know that jobs have been lost in Wales as a result of the abrupt withdrawal of the regional employment premium. It was not the withdrawal of the premium that riled so many people, especially Conservatives, but the way in which it was done without any rundown or warning. That was extremely damaging and foolish. Can anyone imagine the mud that would be thrown at a Tory Government who dared to do the same thing?
The figures will be made much worse unless the country can improve productivity, as it so desperately needs to do. I fear that Wales will do particularly badly in that matter. The miners have turned down the pay productivity scheme, and I regret that the Welsh pits were perhaps among the leaders in turning it down. It was a sad day for certain Welsh pits when they did that.
There must also be improved productivity in the steel industry. Governments have repeatedly listed how many tons of steel are produced in this country per worker and how many by the workers of our competitiors. In a world in which there is heavy steel production —as there now is—only those with the highest productivity will survive. Unless


we increase productivity our steel industry will be in a sad plight. If we do not pull our industry out of the mire and bring it into the modern world thousands of jobs will be lost in the industry. I should not have to say that to the Minister, because he and 1 share that particular problem, with the reduction of steel production in our constituencies and nearby areas in the relatively near future. I ask the Minister how he proposes to absorb all those thousands of jobs that will, I fear, be lost.
The position is worsened by the Labour Party's attack on the whole philosophy of enterprise and thrift. It has most certainly been worsened by yesterday's TUC and Labour Party document, which must have been designed to destroy jobs—unless someone knows of some means by which abolishing the House of Lords will produce work for people other than journalists. I should like to look at some of the proposals now. There will be a tighter capital gains tax. I doubt that that will do much for jobs. There will be an agreed bracket for top salaries. That will be very nice, but will it encourage our managers and investors and foreign firms to set up in Wales, to employ managers in Wales with agreed top bracket salaries? Why should they do that when they could easily set up in France, Germany or any other EEC country and pay the sort of international salaries that are demanded in those countries?
The document says that there will be no wealth tax this side of a General Election. How very kind!But surely the idea that there will be a wealth tax the other side of an election will not hurry along the higher investment that the document also calls for. Apparently we shall need that investment and import substitution to be able to reach the economic growth rate of well over 3 per cent. a year up to 1980 to make a deep impact on unemployment.
So there is to be income and wealth redistribution, a wealth tax after the election, a tighter capital gains tax and a hammering of managers with agreed brackets. Presumably the investment will come from the National Enterprise Board, the Welsh Development Agency and other State set-ups that use taxpayers' money. Is that the way to en-

courage investment in productive industry? Will it not go to job-saving industries? Will it keep going to the shipbuilding industry and the British Leylands of this world? Or will it be left to those who want to invest money where it can make a profit? If we do not allow that, other countries will do so and the unemployment will stay here and it will persist particularly in those parts of the United Kingdom, such as Wales, that have been dependent on the old, heavy industries and that desperately need the newer productive, modern industries.
Our temper in this debate should be the one that would be shown to any Conservative Government that were presiding over 1½ million unemployed in the United Kingdom and 90,000 in Wales. My goodness, how the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Foot) would be ranting and roaring up and down the valleys. If he were sitting on the Opposition Benches—and I wish that he would give us the chance to arrange for him to have to sit on this side—we should see his forensic skills at their finest.
In that 1972 debate, the hon. Member for Rhondda said that we were all looking forward to a rest after our exertions during the summer. He added:
However, for 51,496 Welshmen and women the tragedy is that they have had too long a period of rest. It has been more than rest; it has been enforced idleness which the Government have imposed upon them because of their failure not only to fulfil their election promises…but to deal with the important political, economic and social consequences of extremely high and long-lasting unemployment in Wales."—[Official Report, 2nd August 1972; Vol. 842, c. 728.]
Perhaps the Minister could add to that—just as the Government have added 40,000 to the unemployment level that the hon. Member complained of in 1972.

12.45 a.m.

Mr. Bruce George: I make no apology for joining in a debate on Welsh affairs. I am a Welshman, and one of the growing army of Welshmen representing English constituencies—what might be called Llewellyn the Great's revenge on the English. I shall not follow the political knockabout that we have just heard. The earlier speeches with the exception of the last were restrained and sensible, though I disagreed with many of the points that were made.
The hon. Member's remarks in favour of ending the support of British Leyland almost caused the hon. Member for Bromsgrove and Redditch (Mr. Miller) to collapse in his seat. Support for the abolition of the shipbuilding industry, the decimation of the steel industry and the renewed Tory knocking of the miners is a recipe for industrial strife and further unemployment.

Mr. Grist: The hon. Gentleman could not have been understanding my remarks. The money that goes into shipbuilding, British Leyland or the coal industry must get a proper return. Productivity must be improved to warrant that investment. Without improved productivity there is no point in pouring in good money after bad.

Mr. George: I shall let the hon. Member for Bromsgrove and Redditch argue that point with the hon. Gentleman.
I wish to talk about a subject that is of importance to Wales and other areas—namely, the work of the Professional and Executive Recruitment service. Like other public bodies, it is constantly subjected to attack inside the House and outside. We are always told that nationalisation is synonymous with mammoth losses. Perhaps the events of the past couple of weeks will prove to the knockers that public enterprise is productive and can be highly profitable.
In Wales, from which I departed 10 years ago, I believe that PER will be able to play a vital râle in future in placing professsonal and executive personnel in better and more suitable jobs. Its rÔle is vital, especially in times of high unemployment. There was a time when the industrial scrapheap was reserved for working people. However, people of a higher social status—those in managerial jobs—have found a lack of job security over the past couple of years. The work of PER will be vital in assisting those who are unemployed or those who wish to change their jobs.
Surely the Government's rÔle is not to contract PER but to expand it. Let us pay little heed to the screams of the commercialised agencies, the private "head-hunters", who are seeking to attack this public recruitment agency. They are attacking it because it is doing a great job. Indeed, it will improve as the

years continue. It is providing an excellent recruitment service. In a debate on 7th March my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Employment said:
Its staff have worked long and hard to develop a much more sophisticated and comprehensive service and the range and coverage of its facilities are second to none."—[Official Report, 7th March 1977; Vol. 927, c. 1164.]
In Wales, which is part of the South Wales and West region of PER, there is one of the largest and most diverse areas covered by this importance service. It covers the mining valleys, which were declining areas, the more prosperous and dynamic regions, and agricultural regions such as Devon and Cornwall. PER's scope for expansion is enormous. It has considerably improved its performance since reorganisation despite considerable pressure from the private commercial agencies. Last year 7,000 vacancies were filled by PER. It has a highly competitive rate for those who subscribe to it—namely, 10 per cent. of the salary of the first year. That is highly competitive vis-á-vis the private agencies. Last year it received over £2½ million in fees. I am certain that its deficit will be wiped out.
PER does a great deal of valuable welfare work, unlike most of the commercial agencies. Many of its clients are unemployed. Many of them are placed on courses to help them retrain. Many workers involved in PER are involved in liaising with social security offices over payments. The costs of placing personnel through PER are much lower than those of private agencies.
Therefore, I believe that there are successes, and in looking to the future one must look to expansion. I hope that the PER will attract more people in higher paid jobs. At present the average salary of persons placed through the PER is £3,800. However, I dislike the critics who say that the PER is really a high-powered agency for low-calibre staff, because a survey done last year showed that 33 per cent. of people on its books had degree or degree-equivalent qualifications. That indicates that high-calibre personnel are going to the PER.
I hope that better use is made of the PER by local authorities. Perhaps I may refer to a Question that I asked the Secretary of State for Employment. I asked if he was satisfied with the use made of


the PER by local authorities. The answer was:
No. I am informed by the Manpower Services Commission that the use made of PER by local authorities varies from authority to authority. In general, however, the Commission would very much like to see local authorities making much greater use of PER's recruitment services and PER, itself, will continue to do everything possible to develop closer relationships with local government.
Therefore, I hope that local authorities will make much fuller use of the PER in the future.
As a nation, we must properly utilise our scarce resources. We have considerable managerial skills, and I hope that people with those skills will receive assistance in seeking different jobs and, in many cases, better jobs.
The PER is ideally suited to assist in the private and public sectors. With its network of offices throughout the country and its use of sophisticated computers, it is ideally equipped to assist.

Mr. Wyn Roberts: In the hon. Member's earlier remarks, was he saying that 10 per cent. of the people registered with the PER had been placed in jobs? Secondly, when he was talking about the financial deficit on the PER service, was he implying that people actually had to pay for being dealt with by the service?

Mr. George: Conservatives want things both ways. They criticise if a public enterprise is not making money, saying "Let us imbue this enterprise with the spirit of capitalism and management expertise." In response to the criticism, the agency decides to make a charge, which is much less than the charge of the commercialised services, and the Conservatives criticise that. They cannot have both arguments simultaneously. The PER makes a charge. That charge ought to be made. It is not running a charity. Conservatives are the last people in the world to expect public enterprises to be run on a charitable basis.
The PER has a number of assets. I hope that the day will come when it occupies a position at the commanding heights of the executive recruitment market. I am not saying that commercial agencies should have no right to function. Of course they should. On the other hand, they should not deny the right of the PER to extend and expand and to prosper.
We must properly utilise our reserves of skilled professional and managerial personnel in our society. Many people have highly developed skills, and this is imperative to themselves and to the enterprise in which they are operating. It is absolutely vital to the country as a whole that these people are properly trained and properly placed.
Despite the criticism of the PER both inside and outside the House, it must expand. I hope that the Government will not listen to those who seek to denigrate this organisation but will give it all the support they can and expand its activities, which would be of enormous advantage to people in Wales and in my constituency, and to the country as a whole.

12.54 a.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Barry Jones): I am glad to follow the penetrating and perceptive speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George) on the merits and virtues of PER, which has finally established itself in a competitive area and, I understand, is currently earning about £2 million a year in fees. Some of those fees go to Wales.
The Government's record, considered against the magnitude of the difficult problems that we are facing—problems which the Opposition when in power never had to tackle and which, judging by the pronouncements in this House, they would be incapable of dealing with now—is one that I am always happy to defend.
We are entitled to know in some detail what the Opposition would propose to do, especially about unemployment, upon which the hon. Member for Conway (Mr. Roberts) concentrated.

Mr. Wyn Roberts: The Minister mentioned the PER. Does he really think that it should charge for its services, which are to find jobs for people?

Mr. Jones: I support the policies of the Government on this matter. I do not wish unnecessarily to widen the discussion, which is essentially to do with manpower services in Wales.
I was about to put a question to Opposition Members. Would they increase public expenditure on this front while cutting back public expenditure elsewhere? If so, what would be sacrificed; financial assistance to industry,


regional assistance, or what? I and my colleagues would welcome the chance to examine detailed proposals rather than vague generalities. We are not too proud to adopt any measures which will help to defeat this scourge of unemployment wherever they originate—the problem is far too serious for that.
The level of unemployment, whether considered in the context of the United Kingdom as a whole or within the Principality remains unacceptably high. The latest figures for July are indeed a grim reminder of the combined effects on employment of the worldwide recession and a growing labour supply, the latter reflecting the birth boom of the late 50s and early 60s, and increased movement by married women back into the employment market.
The hon. Gentleman asked what we were doing about the problem and I shall tell him. The Government are tackling this on two main fronts: the first is to regenerate British industry. Our policies to secure industrial regeneration are beginning to take effect, admittedly somewhat slower than we would like. But the pond is stable—indeed, rising against the dollar—our reserves are up, interest rates are down, the balance of payments is moving into surplus and manufacturing investment is increasing.
There are also hopeful signs in Wales. The level of inquiries and visits by industrialists in the early part of this year was sharply up on the corresponding period of last year. Applications for selective financial assistance also show a welcome increase.
With regard to visits and inquiries, in the first four months of 1977, there were 127 inquiries and 44 visits. In the first four months of 1976 there were 95 inquiries and 27 visits. That points to an increase in the number of inquiries this year of about 33 per cent. and in visits of about 63 per cent.

Sir Anthony Meyer: By how much does the Minister expect unemployment to rise by the end of the year?

Mr. Jones: I have not brought my crystal ball with me. I shall not be tempted into a rash of optimism. I am attempting to indicate what we are trying to do to help defeat the scourge of

unemployment in Wales and to-put the case for the better times ahead.
I was about to say that this year we have had 23 applications for selective financial assistance from North Wales firms. A total of 16 offers of assistance have been made.
The other side of the coin consists of our measures to safeguard or create employment. A substantial part of this month's increase in unemployment in Wales was due to the influx of nearly 10,000 school leavers seeking employment for the first time. Undoubtedly next month's figures will show a further increase in this category, although in the normal course of events the numbers can be expected to drop steadily throughout the autumn and early winter. That of course is no consolation to anyone experiencing unemployment. It is a personal tragedy, especially for a young person seeking employment for the first time. The corrosive effects of enforced idleness are hard enough to resist for those thrown out of work for no fault of their own but how much harder for youngsters who have never had a job at all?
That is why the Government are concentrating their main efforts—but not all of them—on measures to deal with the younger unemployed. Hon Gentlemen will need no reminding of the Government's acceptance of the Holland Report recommendations. Indeed, in some instances we have gone somewhat further than the recommendations, which were welcomed by the whole House. The wide-ranging programme of opportunities for young people which the MSC is now preparing, involving the provision of opportunities for over 230,000 young people each year, at a cost of some £160 million, will provide a comprehensive coverage for all our youngsters. The programme in Wales will be geared to our own needs.
As to our present measures the hon. Member for Conway has formed his own judgment of their effectiveness. Everyone is entitled to his own view. But I would ask the hon. Gentleman to consider how much worse the situation would have been without them. The Government measures, ranging from the temporary employment subsidy scheme, the job creation programme, the youth employment subsidy and so on, down to our most recent small


firms employment subsidy scheme in the special development areas, have, up to the end of the first week in July, been responsible for sustaining and creating nearly 39,000 jobs at a cost of about £35 million. A total of 4,700 of these jobs have been in Gwynedd and a quarter of them—1,200—in the Conway constituency. About 10,500 jobs have been saved or created in that way in North Wales. That is a substantial achievement, by any standards. Of course, many of these schemes do not provide permanent employment—we never suggested otherwise —but they do, in a crisis such as we have experienced, ease the unemployment situation and have been very effective in this.
Before I conclude, I wish to say a few words about the recent transfer of responsibilities for the Manpower Services Commission activities in Wales to my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Wales. The Secretary of State considers this to be a very important transfer. Already he has responsibilities for many aspects of domestic policy which are vitally important for industrial development—for example, major road developments; approval of the Welsh Development Agency's programme for site provision, derelict land reclamation and advance factories; the provision of Section 7 financial assistance to incoming or indigenous industries, and so on. These are essential components of the overall programme for securing the regeneration of the Welsh economy. The addition of responsibility for the Manpower Services Commission's activities in Wales provides a further opportunity for ensuring a co-ordinated approach to this objective.
No one would doubt the importance of ensuring a proper match between the availability of skilled labour and the creation of jobs; the importance of determining the needs appropriate to particular areas in Wales; and the need for effective and sensible training policies. Already my right hon Friend has asked the Commission to undertake certain studies in Wales identifying the trends of surplus and shortage of particular skills and to consider a survey in depth of the manpower needs of one or two particular areas so that we can better understand how to meet local needs.
In this connection I know that the provision of training facilities in Gwynedd has been a matter of some concern. I am glad to say, however, that the Chairman of the MSC has now been able to tell the Gwynedd County Council that in view of the needs of the area, the Training Services Agency will provide funds for a small permanent extension to the Gwynedd Technical College, Bangor, on condition that the facilities will be used for an increase in the number of craft courses under the training opportunities scheme. This will be of direct benefit to the hon. Gentleman's constituency. The General Manager of the Training Services Agency in Wales will shortly be discussing this offer with the Council.
The hon. Member for Cardiff, North (Mr. Grist) referred to steel closures, but I would remind him that it was the Tory Government who proposed the steel closure at East Moors and a Labour Government who put back the closure date and gave development area status to the Cardiff travel-to-work area. That gave the city a chance to fight back and attempt to reorganise its employment pattern.

Mr. Grist: In his annual report Sir Charles Villiers said that one of the weaknesses of the British Steel Corporation was closure of the loss-making plant within the five-year period promised by the Corporation. Are the Government intending to override that demand?

Mr. Jones: I shall not be tempted at this late hour into a detailed discussion of policy matters concerning other Departments in Whitehall and the domain of other Ministers. I feel that I touched a raw nerve in reminding the hon. Gentleman that it was a Conservative Government who were prepared to axe so many steel jobs so speedily throughout the Principality. The Labour Government have done a great deal in our period of office since 1974 to help to regenerate the economy of South Wales.
We have pushed ahead with the M4, and there are now 30 miles of motorway under construction or in use. We are spending more than £90 million on the M4 in South Wales. The hon. Gentleman man will recall the recent announcement of nearly £900 million to be invested at the Port Talbot steelworks, and will not have forgotten the recent announcement


of a £5 million share for Wales of the construction industry package. I have already reminded him, perhaps to his discomfiture, of the Labour Government's granting of development area status to Cardiff.
District general hospitals are reaching the planning stage for Swansea, Llanelli and Bridgend, entailing the expenditure of £24 million or more.

Mr. Wyn Roberts: Mr. Wyn Roberts rose—

Mr. Jones: I shall come to North Wales, and give the hon. Gentleman an equally impressive checklist of action by the Government there.

Mr. Wyn Roberts: As the hon. Gentleman talked about investment, particularly in the steel industry, may I ask whether he is happy with the Government's proposed investment of £10 million to £20 million at Shotton?

Mr. Jones: I am glad to have the opportunity of saying that the Labour Government have prevented about 6,500 steel workers in my constituency from joining the dole queue. But for the hon. Gentleman's intervention I might have forgotten to tell the House that the Labour Government granted development area status to Deeside, as well as preventing the loss of 6,500 jobs. If the hon. Gentleman visited East Flint he would be able to obtain the views of ordinary working people there. He would find that they are very happy to have a Labour Government and that they do not contemplate with pleasure even the remotest possibility of a Conservative Government.
The Government have also pumped in £2 million for the reorganisation of secondary education in Dyfed and Gwent, and some district general hospitals are coming on stream at Merthyr and Withybush. All these developments will have an effect on employment.
I turn to some of the stimuli that we are giving to jobs in North Wales. We have just begun the building, in the hon. Gentleman's constituency, of an £18 million district general hospital at Bangor, and we have indicated our willingness to begin within a few years a £6 million district general hospital at Wrexham. Of direct importance to the hon. Gentle-

man's constituency is the £10 million construction scheme for the Britannia Bridge, as well as the multi-million pound Dinorwic hydro-electric scheme of the CEGB, which employs about 2,100 men at present.
Over the past two years the Government have accepted in full the transport supplementary grant bids by the county authorities, which have a direct effect on busmen's jobs and road maintenance jobs.
I also remind the House of the job creation programme and the investment on the narrow-gauge railway into Blaenau Ffestiniog. This Government has also given special development area status to Gwynedd, and the proposal to spend £2½ million on a Queensferry roundabout flyover later this year, which, together with the switch of all available moneys very largely for road building in the immediate years into the A55 dual carriageway—a 56-mile scheme, costing £146 million—will greatly help the employment situation.

Mr. Wyn Roberts: We are of course deeply appreciative of the fact that we have special development area status in North-West Gwynedd, but along the coast we have special development area status, development area status and intermediate area status, affecting the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Flint, West (Sir A. Meyer). Are the Minister and the Government content with the fact that we have this great variety of status on different parts of the North Wales coast?

Mr. Jones: The Government are not complacent or over-content. Assisted area status extends over about 68 per cent. of the land mass of Great Britain. That sort of figure shows the difficulty in merely increasing the coverage of development area status. There would be little point in all of Britain being a development area. It is difficult for the Government to get the mix right, for they have to measure all the demands of the various areas. Those areas are right to make their claims to the Government, but the Government have to make the decisions.
I take on board the remarks by the hon. Member for Flint, West (Sir A. Meyer) about Marsh Road industrial


estate, Rhyl. He asked whether the Welsh Office would use its good offices in this matter. Yes, it will. If the hon. Gentleman gives me at a later date the full details I shall certainly have the point looked at immediately. I shall then respond to him as soon as I can about it.
None of us can be anything but deeply concerned about the level of employment; none of us on the Government side is complacent or under any illusions about the severity and long-standing nature of this problem; none of us expects anything other than a a long gruelling battle to overcome our difficulties on this front. As the Prime Minister said in the House earlier this week, it would not be in anyone's interests if we were to pretend there was some magic solution for our underlying problems. There is not. We know it, and the Opposition know it.
Where we differ perhaps is that we have introduced policies which will strike at the root causes of the present situation. The Opposition seem to have no policy other than to call for further unspecified cuts in public expenditure. I am not being unfair, however, when I remind them that they all want these public expenditure cuts to affect interests other than those within their own constituencies; indeed, the cry is for more expenditure, not less, for their constituencies.
This hopelessly confused position clearly shows that in their hearts they know how painful the consequences would be if their hostility to public expenditure and particularly to expenditure in the area of the social services were ever to be translated into action. They lack the courage to spell this out, however.
We, for our part, make no facile claims that our policies will offer any early or painless solution to our difficulties. The Government labour under difficulties greatly in excess of those which the previous Government faced from 1970–74. It was a little unfair of the hon. Member for Cardiff, North and his hon. Friends to berate the Government so. They omitted to remember that in November 1973 oil prices world wide increased fivefold, and that that factor triggered off a worldwide slump unprecedented in peace time. Our policies, however, offer a constructive and coherent attack upon the underlying economic weaknesses which give rise to unemployment, as well as

blunting the worst of its effects. By contrast, the Opposition have offered us no constructive proposals here tonight, and nothing they have said suggests that Wales or its problems are anything other than very low in their order of priorities.

Orders of the Day — MAIL (DELIVERY)

1.20 a.m.

Mr. Ian Cow: The late Mr. Aneurin Bevan once warned his colleagues about the danger of quoting from their own speeches or articles. I wish to start what I have to say by quoting briefly from a pamphlet written, earlier this month by the hon. Member for Eastbourne. This was what he wrote:
There are still those who believe that the economic and industrial performance of the United Kingdom and the choice available to the citizen will be improved if only we can transfer more power and more decision making to the politicians, but the number is dwindling fast. There has never been a time when the Tory alternative has had a more sympathetic audience.
I endorse those words, and it is against that background that we are debating tonight the Post Office monopoly and the way in which the Secretary of State exercises his power to vary that monopoly.
I suspect that among the elements of the nation's life that are most misunderstood is the monopoly position of the Post Office. We are permitted to deliver newspapers and charge a fee for so doing. We are permitted to deliver parcels and charge a fee for so doing. We may deliver beer or milk or toothpaste or tooth brushes, but he who delivers a letter, save with the consent of the Secretary of State, is guilty of an offence.
This is spelt out, and in the starkest terms, in the Post Office Act 1969—an Act which was passed by the precursor of the present Administration, another Socialist Government. However, with my customary fairness I must concede that the 1969 Act reproduced in all material respects Section 3 of the Post Office Act 1953, which was of course passed by a Conservative Administration. It is right that I should point out that I was not in the House in 1953 and that if I had been I hope that I should have voted against the 1953 Bill and would have addressed the Standing Committee


at great length on the infamous Section 3, or Clause 3 as it was when the Committee was considering it. Hon. Members may laugh, but I am being perfectly honest in saying that I was not here in 1953, nor, I think, was the Minister or the hon. Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George).
We should dwell shortly upon Section 3(2) of the 1953 Act. It spells out that it is unlawful to deliver a letter save in certain very special circumstances. Here they are. It is worth reading them out, because the actual wording of these exceptions goes far to underline the gulf between the real world and the world of mythology that is inhabited by Ministers.
First:
the conveyance and delivery of a letter personally by the sender thereof.
So if we wish to deliver a letter to one of our constituents, or if someone wishes to deliver a letter to his girl friend personally, that is exempt. There will be no £5 fine and no danger of prosecution.
Second:
the sending, conveyance and delivery of a letter by means of a private friend who himself delivers that letter to the addressee.
Again, we have an exemption.
Third:
the sending, conveyance and delivery of a letter concerning the private affairs of the sender or addressee thereof by means of a messenger sent for the purpose by the sender of the letter.
Fourth:
The sending, conveyance and delivery otherwise than by post of any document issuing out of a court of justice.
Fifth:
the sending and conveyance of letters from merchants who are the owners of a merchant ship or commercial aircraft.
Sixth:
the sending, conveyance and delivery of letters by land by means of a common carrier, being letters concerning and for delivery with goods carried by him.
We are tonight to consider two aspects of the Post Office monopoly: first, the general question whether there should be a monopoly, and, second, the particular case raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-East (Sir K. Joseph) at Question Time on Monday last.
Is it not fortunate that we should be having this debate on the Post Office on

the very day when this extremely expensive report, the Post Office Report and Accounts 1976–77, has been placed in our hands, published by Her Majesty's Stationery Office and, no doubt, delivered here by private carrier so as not to infringe the Act? I shall read from page 17:
The number of inland letters handled in the year fell by 4·3 per cent. compared with 1975–76. This"—
The report goes on—
was a disappointing result for a year in which basic letter prices were stable and determined efforts were made to boost business by marketing and selling.
Of course, the report was written before the increase in charges last month. It relates to a year in which we had the old postage rates, and if we had a disappointing result in the number of letters sent last year we may predict with some certainty that there will be a disappointing result in the number of letters sent in the current year.
I refer to the report of the Post Office for 1976–77 because it is intensely relevant to the whole subject of the monopoly. If it be permitted to deliver newspapers through the free enterprise system, if it be permitted to deliver parcels through the free enterprise system, and if it be permitted to deliver milk and beer through the free enterprise system, why is it necessary that we suffer the restrictions imposed by the Post Office Acts of 1953 and 1969?
There is a law to protect a monopoly in the public sector. But what an outcry there would be if there were a monopoly of this kind in the private sector.

Mr. Bruce George: Solicitors?

Mr. Gow: I shall come to that. I assure the hon. Gentleman that I am strongly opposed to the monopoly of solicitors in the matter of conveyancing, and I should be happy to see free competition between them and those other practitioners who wished to ply their trade. I should say—I wish that the Post Office had the same confidence—that people would prefer to go to solicitors with a qualification rather than to those without a qualification. So I am in agreement with the hon. Gentleman, and I am being, I hope, consistent in my argument.
Why is that the Post Office, which has conceded that there is no case for a monopoly in the delivery of newspapers and in the delivery of parcels, should insist upon a monopoly, backed up by the law, in the collection and delivery of letters? That is at the heart of the discussion that we are having this evening. That principle—that we ought to open up the Post Office to the fresh breezes of competition in the collection and delivery of letters—has taken on a new importance in connection with the NW2 postal area.
On Monday of this week my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hendon, South (Mr. Thomas) put this question to the Secretary of State for Industry:
…is the Secretary of State aware that, unless the Post Office insists on the performance of its clear statutory duty to provide services to the NW2 area, there will be a widespread and irresistible demand for a change in the Post Office monopoly and a change in the1969 Act…?
Later, the Secretary of State said:
The Post Office has put to me the suggestion that the Government should consider revocation."—[Official Report, 25th July 1977; Vol. 936, c. 30–1.]
That is revocation of the material—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Myer Galpern): I think that what the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Gow) is now beginning to develop is strictly not in accordance with what is relevant and in order. He is now launching on the argument that we should change the monopoly situation from what it is to something entirely different, which would require legislation and which therefore would be absolutely out of order. If the hon. Gentleman would put a 9p stamp on his speech it might be delivered a bit faster.

Mr. Gow: Am I not ready constantly to defer to your ruling, Mr. Deputy Speaker? Section 23(2) of the Post Office Act 1969, which fortuitously is now in my hand, provides that:
The said restriction is that the power to authorise letters to be sent, conveyed and delivered otherwise than by post and the collection of letters otherwise than by an officer of the Post Office which is conferred by the proviso to subsection (1) of the said section 3 and with which the Post Office becomes invested by virtue of the foregoing subsection shall not be exercisable except with the consent of, or in accordance with the terms of a general authority given by, the Minister.

Since the heading of the debate in the list of subjects for debate is the
Exercise of ministerial power to authorise the sending, conveying and delivery of letters otherwise than by post",
I submit most respectfully that it is in order to address the House and the Minister on the refusal of the Secretary of State, as conveyed to the House on Monday, to authorise the sending of letters otherwise than by post. Indeed, that is the exact wording of subsection (2) of Section 23 of the Post Office Act 1969.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman again. What he has just said is absolutely in order. To confirm what I was saying earlier in regard to change of the law, "Erskine May", at page 745, says that
Debate on all these bills is limited to relevant questions of administration and, as in debates on the estimates themselves, questions of taxation and legislation cannot be discussed.
I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will stay in order.

Mr. Gow: I was not arguing for a change in the law; I was arguing for the Minister to exercise the powers conferred upon him by his own Act.
One of the virtues of the 1953 Act was that it gave the Minister power to waive the Post. Office monopoly. Indeed, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-East put it to the Minister on Monday that, in the case of NW2, he ought to remove the Post Office monopoly.
I turn now from the general to the specific NW2 situation where letters have been piling up at the sorting office. Businesses that are struggling to carry on in that area and are employing people now find that their cash flow is drying up because cheques are not getting through. They are having to lay off staff. The Post Office, which has a monopoly, is failing to carry out its statutory duty to deliver mail. Therefore, the Minister has power, specifically conferred by Section 23(2), to waive the monopoly.
In NW2 it is not only private citizens who are being grievously inconvenienced by the failure of the Post Office to deliver letters; the post boxes in this House have stuck over them an injunction saying that we may not post letters to NW2.
The personal hardship and difficulties being encountered by people living in


NW2 are serious enough, but what is even more serious is the commercial damage that is being done to shops, small factories and businesses of every kind that are carrying on business in that area.
On Monday, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-East said that pension books were not being delivered to pensioners living in NW2.
We now have the highest unemployment figures since the war. For companies to be driven into bankruptcy because of the sterile maintenance of this monopoly is an outrage. At a time when the Government should be taking every step that they can to prevent an increase in bankruptcies and unemployment, they are persisting in upholding the monopoly of the Post Office even though it is unable to deliver letters in NW2.
Apart from the general principles that I outlined earlier, we argue that this is a case where the monopoly should be lifted and where free enterprise should be allowed to do what it is prepared to do—namely, to deliver letters—at a cost, of course—in NW2. There are bags of mail in the Cricklewood sorting office that could and should be delivered.
Of course, the Government will argue "Once we allow a variation or relaxation of the monopoly, we shall cause damage to the Post Office". If the Post Office is as marvellous as it claims to be, what does it have to fear from ending the monopoly?
In its own report, on page 6 it states:
The postal service remains unquestionably one of the best in the world".
I do not dispute that, but if the collection and delivery of mail by the Post Office is so super, what do the Minister and the Post Office have to fear from ending the monopoly? Why, if it is unreasonable to allow a monopoly in the private sector, is it unreasonable to allow competition in the Post Office?
If newspapers and parcels can be delivered by free enterprise, why not letters? In the case of NW2, why should the Minister insist on the maintenance of the outmoded monopoly when the consequences of his insistence are so great—inconvenience to individuals who write and receive letters, and a potential increase in bankruptcy and unemployment among small businesses?
I urge some fresh thinking on this matter. I hope that the Minister will tell the House tonight that one of the first actions he will take in the recess will be to give further urgent consideration to relaxing the monopoly and ensuring that no further damage is done to the economy and to the employment prospects of NW2.

1.41 a.m.

Mr. Norman Lamont: The House is indebted to my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Gow) for raising this important question on the monopoly of the Post Office, and in particular the situation in NW2. I follow him by considering the position of the Secretary of State in not using his undoubted discretion to suspend the monopoly.
The situation in NW2 is having extremely serious repercussions on a number of small businesses—between 100 and 200 of them—whose mail is being held up in the Cricklewood sorting office.
I make it quite clear that I recognise that the Union of Post Office Workers had a very difficult task. I am not criticising it, because it did try to sort out the matter. I recognise, also, that the Post Office Corporation has a very difficult problem. It removed the Grunwick mail from the Cricklewood sorting office hoping that that would get everyone back to work. It did not succeed, and because of that it could now be argued that this gives the appearance of discrimination against other firms.
The sorters in the Cricklewood office have said that they would handle all mail except that of Grunwick, and the Post Office has said that that is unacceptable. There cannot be a situation in which Post Office workers can say which mail they will handle and which they will not touch.
The issue of principle here is that the monopoly of the Post Office gives priviledges to those who work in the Corporation, and therefore there is an obligation by virtue of that monopoly.
The merits of Mr. Ward have nothing whatever to do with this. I observe in passing that many people consider that the workers are criminally liable. That seems quite clear from the 1953 Act. As for the argument that all this dates from


the period of the footpads and highwaymen, we all know that these provisions were specifically put into the 1953 Act.
What can be done? What has led my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne to the conclusion that the only way out is to suspend the monopoly in NW2? I suppose that the Post Office could allow people to collect their mail, but that would be very difficult. It would present problems of identity if people could just walk into the Post Office and claim their mail. Another alternative would be to have replacement staff, but then the dispute would be extended to other areas of London.
Logic clearly demonstrates that it would be sensible to suspend the monopoly in NW2. That would be the only way in which one could deal with this enormous problem of the mail piling up.
There are problems with outgoing and incoming mail. For the outgoing mail one could consider allowing people to collect it, and the Post Office could be indemnified against any liability. As for the incoming mail, it is quite clear that one ought to suspend the monopoly. The Secretary of State has the discretion to do that. There is a strong case for saying that in the event of industrial action in the Post Office—given the Post Office's monopoly position and the absolutely basic nature of the service to many businesses—it should be basic for the Minister to suspend the monopoly. We can recall what happened in 1971 during the Post Office strike. All sorts of alternative services mushroomed and people were able to get their mail delivered in central London through alternative services.
Another point in favour of the argument of my hon. Friend is that if the monopoly were suspended it would strengthen the position of the Union of Post Office Workers and make it easier for the union to argue with the men in the sorting office that the livelihood of their fellow workers was being endangered until the matter was resolved. It would help the authority of the UPW with its members.
I hope that when the Minister replies he will bear in mind that this is an extremely serious situation for many businesses and that with every day that

passes the liquidity position of many of them is worsening. Of course, the problem is a godsend for those who owe money to firms in the NW2 area. It is of advantage for their cash flow. However, the matter is becoming extremely serious for businesses in the area. I understand that more than 100 businesses are affected. For that reason I should like strongly to support my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne's case for suspending the Post Office's monopoly in NW2 for the duration of this unfortunate strike.

1.48 a.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Industry (Mr. Les Huckfield): I must confess to having been somewhat concerned by the spirit in which the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Gow) raised his subject tonight. I could not help feeling that he might have been more constructive, and that his attempt would have been regarded more favourably by the House had he not raised the subject in that spirit. The hon. Gentleman rather spoiled his case, because it was possible —if one disregarded the first paragraph of his speech—to believe that he was trying to be constructive in solving a serious problem. However, that first paragraph, about breaking a monopoly and introducing competition, together with the hon. Gentleman's philosophical discourse, spoiled the case.
In the past the hon. Gentleman has introduced various denationalisation measures and has sponsored measures favouring more competition and spelling out the Tory alternative. I recognise that he has stuck to his guns and held to his principles. He was right in recognising that there is a monopoly in the postal service, which was conferred upon the Post Office by Section 9 of the Post Office Act 1969. That Act places a duty upon the Post Office:
to exercise its powers to meet the social, industrial and commercial needs of the Post Office…throughout the British Islands.
I do not want to go into all the arguments for and against monopolies, but I am sure that the House will recognise that there is some difference between the kind of service that is provided by the Post Office and the kind of communication services of which the hon. Member for Eastbourne has spoken.
If the hon. Gentleman is talking of parcels services, where there are several public carriers competing for business, he should know that they are all making losses and are being cross-subsidised. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not think that this is a better alternative because those who have studied that competition have concluded that the answer to the problem is the establishment of a monopoly. It is difficult to accept that the position is as black and white as the hon. Gentleman suggests.
The hon. Gentleman seems to misunderstand the powers of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. Section 23(2) of the Post Office Act 1969 gives him power to give consent to the Post Office to permit the operation of some other scheme, but it does not give him power to break the monopoly. The hon. Gentleman seemed to suggest that it did. He ought to give the Act more serious examination.

Mr. Gow: If the Minister argues that the Secretary of State does not have the power to suspend the monopoly, how does he account for the fact that the Secretary of State said on Monday:
The Post Office has put to me the suggestion that the Government should consider revocation. I told the Post Office, when it put it to me, that at this stage it is the view of the Government—the political view of the Government—that to do that"—
that is, suspend the monopoly—
would exacerbate the situation."—[Official Report, 25th July 1977; Vol. 936, c. 31.]
My interpretation of Section 23(2) and the right hon. Gentleman's interpretation on Monday indicate that there is such a power for the Secretary of State. The 1953 Act spells out the power even more clearly.

Mr. Huckfield: I do not want to indulge in a philosophical or semantic discourse with the hon. Gentleman. The Act confers on the Secretary of State a power to permit the operation of certain other services, but it does not give him the power to break the monopoly conferred on the Post Office. If the hon. Gentleman fits my remarks into the context of his opening paragraphs, he will see that I am right.
This is not the first time that this subject has been raised in recent weeks.

On Monday, the Secretary of State made clear the decision that he had taken on the matter of ministerial consent for the breaking of the Post Office monopoly. My right hon. Friend has been in continuing contact with the Chairman of the Post Office Corporation at this difficult time over the licensing of alternative services in NW2. On Monday, my right hon. Friend told the House that any such action at this time could only exacerbate and worsen an already difficult situation. That is a view that we reach in the light of the extensive efforts being made by both the Post Office and the Union of Post Office Workers to try to secure a return to normal working. I am glad that the hon. Member for Kingston upon Thames (Mr. Lamont) paid tribute to the efforts of the Union of Post Office Workers to secure a return to normal working.
As the hon. Members for Eastbourne and Kingston upon Thames know, the Post Office last Saturday agreed to a request from Grunwick to hand back the unfranked outgoing mail at the Cricklewood sorting office that had not yet entered the postal system. On that occasion the Post Office took the view that the removal of the cause of the dispute could alleviate the situation and leave the way open for a return to normal working. The Post Office workers, however, decided that they would resume work if they were given some sort of guarantee by the Post Office that they would not have to handle Grunwick mail. The Post Office could give no such guarantee.
I repeat what has been said outside the House and by my right hon. Friend about the efforts of the Union of Post Office Workers to persuade its members to resume work. I repeat the tribute that has already been paid. It is because of the efforts of the union that the dispute has so far been contained. I understand that the London District Council of the UPW decided that it would continue to urge its members not to black Grunwick mail posted outside NW2. I understand that the union's executive has subsequently issued an instruction to its members declaring that it does not regard mail posted by NW2 residents outside the NW2 area as diverted mail. In other words, the UPW firmly declared its policy as being to handle all mail from NW2.
The Deputy General Secretary of the Union of Post Office Workers, Mr. Norman Stagg, has said that he is concerned about what he feels to be the generation of a deliberate campaign to escalate this dispute. I am not accusing the hon. Members for Eastbourne and Kingston upon Thames of wanting to do that, but it should be placed on record that it is causing the deputy general secretary concern. He feels his members to be put in a position in which they are exposed to provocation from left and right, as he puts it.
When we have a situation in which the UPW is bending all efforts and energies to secure a return to normal working, when we have a situation in which the executive council of the union has endorsed that policy, as has the London district council of the union, and when there is to be another meeting for Grunwick workers to discuss the matter, I commend to the House the efforts that it has been making. It is also worth bearing in mind—I hope that the hon. Members for Eastbourne and Kingston upon Thames will take this to heart—that the union has stressed to its members the duty to handle all mails and not to discriminate. Having said that, I hope that they will pay tribute to the union's r âle on this occasion.
It is in view of these various moves that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State reached the view that the action to remove the Post Office monopoly in NW2 would not at this time be warranted. As long as there continue to be courses of action available to either the Post Office or the union that stand a reasonable chance of providing a solution to the dispute, we believe that steps that might worsen the situation are best avoided. We believe that to take the action that has been urged by Opposition Members would inflame the situation and spread a dispute that has so far, because of the efforts of the UPW, fortunately remained localised.
The Government fully understand and sympathise with those living in NW2 for all the inconvenience and difficulties caused by the lack of postal services. I have been in receipt of a number of letters and representations from hon. Members representing their constituency interests. Therefore, we have certainly had the effects of this dispute brought to our

attention in the Department of Industry, and we understand its implications for residents in NW2. Nevertheless, we feel that the only happy result from the postal point of view is to get all of the mail moving, not only that which is being posted now but that which is trapped.
There may be some misunderstanding about what a suspension or a derogation from the monopoly position may involve. If the hon. Member for Kingston upon Thames looks at what happened during the strike in 1971 and at previous examples he will see that a derogation would not help the situation with regard to the backlogged or trapped mail. It would, perhaps, provide some way of bypassing NW2, but it is worth stressing that a derogation would not help with regard to the mail trapped at Cricklewood at present. Indeed, we believe that because any attempt to do that could be seen to be based on some kind of confrontation it could only be counterproductive.
I am also a little concerned about some of the legal implications of what the hon. Member has been saying about allowing people to collect their own mail or in some way bypass the Post Office's normal service. A number of legal obligations are placed upon the Post Office in this regard, and to allow people to do things under their own efforts—in this context I am glad that the hon. Member for Eastbourne quoted the restrictions—could raise some quite severe legal problems for the Post Office.
We feel that it would help no one in NW2 if we were to take or recommend action that resulted only in a further escalation of the dispute and deprived others elsewhere of postal services.

Mr. Norman Lamont: I recognise that allowing people to collect their own mail would raise both practical and legal problems. I specifically referred to the practical problems. However, could not there be devised some arrangements whereby people could collect their blocked mail in exchange for producing identification and signing an indemnity for the Post Office?

Mr. Huckfield: I am not sure about the number of administrative staff and the arrangements that would be necessary to operate such a scheme, but there


would be a considerable number of administrative difficulties in the hon. Member's suggestion, apart from the legal problems involved.
I know that hon. Members are concerned about this matter. I assure the House that my right hon. Friend is keeping in constant touch with the situation and that he and the Post Office, whose conduct has been very considerate, want to take any action—obviously taking into consideration all the factors in the situation—that looks like bringing a successful outcome to this affair.
We do not believe that a derogation or a suspension would at present contribute to that kind of success. That is not the best way forward. I once more draw the attention of hon. Members to the efforts being made by the UPW in conjunction with the Post Office. I suggest to hon. Members that that is really the best way forward, although I recognise that this dispute is causing problems in NW2.

Orders of the Day — MOTOR INDUSTRY

2.4 a.m.

Mr. Hal Miller: I rise to discuss support for the motor industry. I am happy to find the Under-Secretary on the Treasury Bench, as he shares with me a concern for the industry. He also shares with me many constituents who work in the industry and he has great experience of its problems.
My reason for seeking this debate is that I wish to raise a number of questions which it has not been possible to put to Ministers when statements have been made to the House on releasing further tranches of money for British Leyland.
My object tonight is to try to bring home to the Government the fact that the mere release of additional money under this Vote is of itself not adequate to carry conviction and to give confidence to those working into the industry. That needs to be supported by more consistent action on the part of the Government.
At the same time, I wish to examine with the Minister the strategy on which that support has been based, because I do not think that this House has had the

opportunity of re-examining it since the Ryder plan. We do need to keep abreast of developments since then.
The motor industry is still a major industry in this country, directly employing 600,000 people. The components industry, which supplies it, employs about 1 ·2 million people and the dealers who sell the products, employ roughly the same number again, as well as equal amount of capital employed.
The industry, in fact, accounts for £3,500 million of foreign earnings and is responsible for about 5 per cent. of our GDP. The road user, through taxation, supplies about 10 per cent. of the general revenue of the Government and there is a considerable surplus over expenditure on roads, which will rise in the current year from about £1,700 million to £2,500 million. It is no wonder that any Government and any political party must be concerned about the future of this industry.
The figures in respect of Government support are now mind-boggling. The British Leyland figure alone, of £1,400 million—£2,800 million over the five years after inflation—is an absolutely astonishing pre-emption of resources for one industry, and serious questions must be raised about the extent of this commitment in the light of the parallel and later commitment which the Government undertook with regard to Chrysler.
But, as I said in my original remarks, one of my purposes this evening is to try to bring home to the Government the fact that despite this massive input of funds they have not yet succeeded in carrying conviction with the work force, with the component makers, with the dealers, with the public and with Parliament that their actions are consistent and that they have a coherent policy to pursue in respect of this industry.
One needs only to reflect on the recent White Paper on Transport Policy, which proposed a reduction in expenditure on roads. One has only to reflect on the proposed increase in the petrol tax, proposed in the last Budget, or the recent introduction of taxation on company cars which hit Leyland's most successful product and which was bitterly resented by the work force. One has only to think of regional policy, which severely lengthened the production line of many


factories by diverting to opposite ends of the country subsidiary plants, or plants making essential parts for the production, thereby increasing transport costs and delivery difficulties.
There are many other policies, but in the interests of being brief I shall turn from those to the question of necessary confidence and certainty.
I hope that the Government understand that the work force needs to have confidence that it will be allowed to negotiate a common starting date for its pay agreement in British Leyland. This subject was raised during the confidence debate last week, both by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition and by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker). In reply, the Chancellor of the Exchequer said:
This is not provided for in the TUC guidelines and there are great risks if an unfair advantage is taken of the possibility. I believe that there is a real problem for some major companies, for the reasons that my hon. Friend the Member for Perry Barr mentioned. If the management and unions concerned reached an agreement that did not infringe the guidance given by the TUC, I have no doubt that the TUC would consider whether the proposal was acceptable."—[Official Report, 20th July 1977; Vol. 935, c. 1734.]
I hope that the Minister has been able to give the matter some attention since the Chancellor spoke, because this is such an important matter that I do not believe that it should be left in the hands of the TUC. The Government have invested our money in this company. They must ensure that that money is protected and that proper use is made of it.
I emphasise the warning given by the hon. Member for Perry Barr that unless something is done there is a real danger that that investment will be severely prejudiced. I understand that neither management nor unions will be able to hold the line unless a common starting date is agreed.
I move further, to the question of differentials. The Minister will be aware of the difficulties earlier in the year over the toolmakers' strike. There are differentials between one skill and another, between skilled and unskilled, between those with responsibility and those without. The Minister will be aware of the real difficulties of different rates of pay for the same job in different plants.
There is a further worry on this score, because as recently as this afternoon the Prime Minister said that average industrial earnings were £80 per week. That is not the common wage in British Leyland. Many of my constitutents are drawing about £68 a week. They have made it plain to me that they will go for the average industrial wage in their negotiations.
The Chancellor and the Prime Minister have been telling us that if we are to have single-figure inflation we must have single-figure wage increases. That is a static view. It takes no account of the possibilities of increases in production. I hope that the Minister will agree that if people produce more they should be allowed to earn more.
We must increase productivity. The NEB report admitted fairly and squarely that British Leyland productivity is not yet up to comparable international levels. I am telling the Minister—I am sure that he is aware of this—that British Leyland will not be able to reach comparable international productivity unless the payment system is changed to allow for incentive.
In the recent debate the Chancellor said that self-financed productivity deals would be allowed. The Government have a responsibility to ensure that this policy is applied at Leyland's.
There are other reasons why the work force lacks confidence. There have been failures of management and failures and difficulties on the union side. There have been persistent union rivalries, notably at Cowley, with serious effects. The work force has not always felt confident that the unions are representing their interests. That was certainly the case with the toolmakers.
I could go on further on that aspect, but in the interests of progress I turn to the component makers. There is a great deal of uncertainty and confusion about Government policy. We were told in the CPRS report that the component industry was the main strength of the British motor industry and that it offered the best and most profitable opportunities for the future. The impression given was that the British compenent industry was uniquely strong. There is great uncertainty among the industry about British Leyland's proposals for making further


components in-house—notably exhaust systems, electrical systems, heaters and bumpers.
I hope that the Minister will understand that these component makers see themselves subjected to competition financed out of their taxes, which represents a threat to their production and is liable to draw away scarce managerial and technical skills which are needed for the production of these components. It must also be admitted that there is doubt about the management ability of British Leyland if it cannot get the requisite levels of productivity. Is it in a state to take on additional forms of product? What is needed is for the line to be clearly drawn and for there to be a general understanding so that a general acceptance may be gained of what British Leyland is trying to do in this respect. 
I move on to the dealers, who have a larger work force and comparable capital employed. The dealers have serious doubts about the quality of recent production. We have been told in the NEB report that the numbers have been achieved. It was a matter of great regret to me that the Secretary of State insisted on the target numbers being achieved rather than having an equal insistence on making certain that what is produced can be sold. It is no good producing anything unless it can be sold, and there has been real problems about quality. There is a wide suspicion, not only among dealers but members of the public, that British Leyland has gone for numbers rather than for quality.
Those in my constituency who are engaged in quality control have told me that they had to take a back seat in the last three months and their difficulties have been enhanced by a very high rate of labour turnover, which has made it impossible to find skilled replacements for those who arc absent. The dealers are also concerned about the sales policies of British Leyland. Superdeal may have cleared the stocks last autumn, but it led to a great loss of confidence among dealers and among the public, who could not understand why they were able for a short period to buy for a much reduced sum, after which that facility was suddenly available no more.
Dealers are also concerned about model mix, and the need for a new medium car. I shall revert later to that matter of strategy. The public are the next body who are worried, and they need reassurance and certainty as to the drift of Government policy and support for the motor car industry.
All companies' car prices have risen practically uniformly by 6 per cent. quarterly. It must be admitted, and has been admitted to me by a senior executive, that the operation of the Price Code has been such as to make these increases automatic. All companies have been able to charge them without fear of competition because they know that everybody else will follow suit to the same amount. The code has done nothing to hold down the prices of cars and has fossilised manufacturers in their method of manufacture rather than providing incentives to seek raw materials or new ways of doing things.
The public are concerned about quality, the availability of cars and the trade policy, because they see their taxes going to support our industry but at the same time it is not clear what the Government's policy is for the car park—if I may put it that way—and the import trade.
Parliament is the last body I wish to mention that needs to have a better idea where the Government are going in the matter of support for the car industry, how it is to be channelled, and how accountability is to be achieved. I should welcome the current line of thinking, that the NEB should be made more responsible than the Department for reaching these decisions and for the allocation of the additional tranches as and when they are required, but there goes with that the need to hold the NEB accountable in some way, which the House has not so far sorted out. It is not easy to arrive at the manner in which the NEB should be made accountable. It is possible for individual hon. Members to see the chairman or engage in correspondence, but it is not possible to get anything aired in the House. We have a great deal still to do on that.
In the case of Leyland the House must also be concerned that the additional money is still being made available on


the strength of the NEB report, for which we are grateful, despite the reservations in it. We must be concerned, because we have had no answer to the question whether Leyland has been providing its own 50 per cent. to match those funds. My deduction, with which I think other hon. Members will agree, is that it has not been able to do so.
It would be very helpful to the company to be subjected to that discipline. If it has not been able to raise the money out of its trading position, the House might well ask whether it does not possess some assets that should be realised—whether the special products division, for instance, should be sold to make available the funds required in the car sector.
I do not wish to stray further into the question of the way in which the whole of Leyland is organised, and whether that matter should not be looked at afresh with the departure of Lord Ryder, who insisted on a certain form of organisation as part of the Ryder plan. But I emphasise that there must be concern in the House on the question whether Leyland is making its contribution and whether it should be required to do so.
Let me now turn to the way in which this matter is presented to the House. We are always given a global figure—perhaps £100 million to £500 million out of a total of £1,400 million. But it is not immediately apparent to the House that these figures include provision of a new test track with associated facilities. There must be grave doubt whether such expenditure is justified at such a time as this if the company cannot make its matching contribution. There must also be grave doubt about the effect this is likely to have on the motor industry's own test track.
There are other items of expenditure which do not give one confidence that financing is being addressed in a responsible manner. That casts doubt on the enterprise as a whole and has a most unfortunate repercussion throughout the organisation while giving the public further cause to suspect that all is not well. That does not produce an atmosphere in which any of us will be able to contribute towards making a success of the operation.
The strategy of the motor industry in this country must depend very largely on

the international scene which, according to a recent report of the EEC and to the latest issue of the "Motor Digest", is becoming increasingly competitive. Our industry is small by comparison with the industries of the United States and Japan. It seems therefore that there must be a further concentration. The Japanese industry is producing about 6 million vehicles a year, and that is expected to rise to 8 million. Our EEC partners together produce 8 million, and the Americans are producing about 12 million.
Government aid to Chrysler was largely based on the insistence that Chrysler's activities in this country should be fully integrated into the European operation. That provided a great advantage, the fruits of which are now becoming apparent with the success of the Alpine and, provided some of the assembly difficulties at Linwood can be overcome, with the launch of the 424.
We therefore face a situation in which these large national industries are highly competitive and in which the countries of the less-developed world are turning increasingly towards the assembly of motor vehicles. The position in Iran is well known to us, because of that country's link with Chrysler. Perhaps not so well known is that already motor production lot Brazil is running at over 1 million units a year. There is a growing trend of motor manufacture in developing countries.
The third strategic factor which must be taken into account is that productivity is growing faster than the market. That means the likelihood of serious consequences for employment. It will not be enough to put money into the industry to save existing jobs. Part of that money is bound to lead eventually to a loss of employment. We must therefore consider whether the industry can be maintained at its existing level in the manner in which the Government have chosen to operate it.
I am only floating a suggestion this evening, but I think that the Government might wish to consider whether Leyland ought not also to be put somehow on to a European scale.
We have seen the apparent success of the Chrysler European operation. The success of the Ford European operation is well known. We have been happy to


note recently that General Motors proposes to start the production of the Cavalier in Britain.
I wonder whether we should not consider providing the new medium car that dealers so desperately need from a European source, perhaps to English design, as was done with the Chrysler Alpine. It might also be possible, as part of that deal, to have manufactured partly abroad some of the specialist cars on which there is a production bottleneck in Britain now, such as the Rover 3500 and the Jaguar. Although these are advanced and successful designs, the difficulty has always been to obtain adequate production and to ensure that there is sufficient output to cash in on the success of the design. We should pay tribute to those successes.
So far the House has been concentrating on the maintenance of jobs and the funding from tax revenue. We must look rather more deeply at what we are doing on a strategic basis.
I do not wish to detain the House at this late hour. I will therefore draw my remarks to a conclusion with a plea to the Government to understand that right through the bodies I have mentioned there is a need for confidence and for certainty. A coherent policy is required. The House needs further assurances about the Government's strategic thinking, because there is a real need for Britain to become and stay internationally competitive.
I hope, also, that in that connection the Government will give serious attention to imports which are not competitive in production but which are sold here at very low prices, particularly from Comecon countries. A huge dealer network has been set up selling only 17 cars per year per dealer. That cannot be viable. It must be based on the assumption that there will be a heavy increase in throughput through those dealers.
The high level of imports from Japan must be taken seriously, especially in view of Japan's very advanced production facilities, which extend far beyond cars. There is real concern about light vans being assembled in the Republic of Ireland from Japanese parts for export to this country on an internal EEC basis.
I pay tribute to all those in the industry who, in such difficult circumstances, are doing their very best to produce the results, because I know that they are proud of their product, wish it to be successful, and are looking to the Government to take the necessary action.

35 a.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for industry (Mr. Les Huckfield): The whole House recognises that the hon. Member for Bromsgrove and Redditch (Mr. Miller) speaks with a great deal of experience of the motor vehicle industry, and I pay tribute, as, I am sure, will hon. Members on both sides, to the constructive way in which he has introduced this debate tonight. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for choosing this important topic.
The hon. Gentleman was absolutely right to emphasise the magnitude and importance of the task of maintaining our own motor vehicle producing industry. I am sure that he, for his part, will realise that that was a task the magnitude and importance of which was recognised in the Government's White Paper in January 1976 on the objectives which they had set for the motor vehicle industry.
In essence, the Government take the view that we want to see a viable, substantial and competitive motor vehicle industry into the 1980s and beyond. Our aim is to maximise the economic benefits of having that industry to secure employment and make a positive contribution to the balance of payments, which, as the hon. Gentleman knows, this industry is well capable of making.
May I try to break down that objective into rather more detail? We must have the objective of maintaining one strong indigenous manufacturer of a comprehensive range of products. The second aim which we have set ourselves is to encourage the multinationals to continue to locate as many of their production facilities in this country as possible. Third and over and beyond that, our aim is to create conditions in which both British Leyland and the multinationals operate successfully. That is the framework of the Government's policy within which we see the motor industry operating.
I move on now to more specific details, particularly with regard to British Leyland. British Leyland—I am glad


that the hon. Gentleman recognised this and paid tribute to it—is the country's largest single exporter. Its contribution to the balance of payments now runs close to £1,000 million a year, and, in the Government's view, this contribution fully justifies the massive programme of support which we have planned and designed to ensure the return of British Leyland to full viability. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman acknowledges also that this massive programme of support follows a sustained period of under-investment in the firm.
The larger part of the assistance will be provided as loan capital on commercial terms, and will be repaid. The scale of support is very large—I do not deny that—but it is based upon a careful study of what British Leyland needs to compete right the way across the model range. I know that there have been certain differences of view in the House as to the part or parts of the model range on which British Leyland should concentrate, but the basic Ryder strategy and the Government's strategy is that the company should be a producer of cars right the way across the model range. That is a fairly substantial declaration of ambition and of faith in British Leyland itself.
It is possible to achieve the sort of volume necessary to compete in the mass market and to generate increased sales both in continental Europe and in the United Kingdom and elsewhere only if substantial investment is made. That means, if we are to have that level of investment and production, that we must, as the hon. Gentleman said, have a viable and strong dealer network both at home and in Europe.
It is that requirement and declaration of objectives—that British Leyland ought to produce right across the model range, that it ought to be a substantial producer in this country and in Europe, and that it ought to have a viable dealer network—which underpin the level of assistance which we believe to be necessary.
I come now to the point which the hon. Gentleman made about the Europeanisation, if I may so call it, of Ford, General Motors and Chrysler. It is true that, over the past 10 years in particular, American multinationals have become integrated on a much more European basis. We now talk of dual sourcing and triple sourcing,

with reference to the kind of European strategy that Ford and General Motors in particular have adopted. I note in this context the hon. Gentleman's comparison with British Leyland, which is at present primarily British-sourced. There is strong pressure from the trade union movement that the company should maintain a British purchasing preference policy.
I hope that the hon. Gentleman will also recognise that although British Leyland has recently engaged in opening discussions with Renault, this is a series of discussions which certainly does not carry with it any set of pre-conditions. It is simply a series of very preliminary discussions to examine the kinds of technical collaboration and other things that might take place. I should not like the hon. Gentleman to get the idea that British Leyland was attempting to emulate the European multinationals or to integrate in that same kind of way.
The Government have also recognised that just as half-measures in regard to investment are not sufficient to do the job, so investment alone is not sufficient. Hand in hand with the massive investment that I have just been describing is the need to increase and to ensure improvements in industrial performance, most noticeably in the areas of industrial relations and productivity.
It is no use shying away from the fact that productivity levels in this country, particularly in British Leyland, are not up to those of our Continental counterparts. It is not only a question of investment and of productivity. It is, as the hon. Gentleman indicated, a question of incentives, differentials and some of the difficulties in pay policy about which we have had a lot of discussion during the past two years.
I do not want to lead the hon. Gentleman into a discussion of common starting dates and what is to happen in the next pay round. He will realise that there has been a great deal of discussion on these matters. The Government recognise the need for more flexibility after July 31st, but we also recognise the need not to throw away and not to scatter to the four winds the gains that we feel have been made in reducing the rate of inflation in the past two years.
It is sufficient to take note that there has been agreement in the participation machinery and in the working parties as to the need to move towards some kind of common starting date, but I am sure that the hon. Gentleman recognises that it is rather more complicated than that. I am sure he would not expect me to point the way in any definite direction this evening, but I recognise his concern. It is a concern and a discussion which has been going on for some considerable time.
Just as we have tried to preach the philosophy of making each tranche of financial assistance conditional on improvements in the sorts of areas to which I have referred, so also, in applying this philosophy of each tranche being conditional we have to take into account the need not to create too much uncertainty about the company's future in the minds of workers, customers and dealers. That is the kind of fine balance that we have to preserve. We need accountability. We need to have tranches advanced with conditions attached. Nevertheless, we also need to create certainty and a positive future for all the people involved in this industry.
It is the same on the truck and bus side, although I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will recognise that we have not had quite the productivity comparisons and industrial relations record on that side that we have had in the car industry. Nevertheless, there has been a past history of serious under-investment. There is also a growing need to penetrate West European markets and an increasing need to watch the penetration of the Europeans, and now the Japanese, into our markets. I shall refer to that a little later.
We recognise, the British Leyland board recognises, and the National Enterprise Board recognises, the opportunities and the need to improve the model range in truck and bus, and particularly the need for a new bus and for new trucks. Recent investment decisions and plans have already been announced in this direction.
The hon. Gentleman touched on the way in which British Leyland has been financed, and also referred to the conditional approach which has so far been adopted. The hon. Gentleman may have been somewhat misled by the media's

concentration on production target figures. My right hon. Friend has been talking in terms of the need to meet the targets. The company has been setting the targets and my right hon. Friend has been stressing the need to have continuous production so that the targets can be met.
It was in that spirit that, on 25th July, my right hon. Friend drew attention to the NEB's report on British Leyland. The report shows that production recently has been maintained at high levels and records the NEB's view that real progress towards achieving a radical improvement in industrial relations has been made, although both the hon. Gentleman and I, with our constituency interests, recognise that we still have a substantial way to go.
It was on that kind of basis—that an improvement had been recorded in the last three months—that the NEB recommend that it should be authorised to release a further load of up to £100 million, subject to the NEB being satisfied at each stage that progress on improving industrial relations is continuing.
The hon. Gentleman referred to future financing policy towards British Leyland. As my right hon. Friend said in his statement on 25th July, the Government have not taken a final view. The next tranche will come from the NEB. Certain views have been expressed on this matter by the Industrial Development Advisory Board and others. It has always been the Government's view that the major source of funds for British Leyland would be the NEB. However, no final view has been taken on that matter.
The hon. Gentleman referred to the NEB's guidelines and its accountability to the House. I draw the hon. Gentleman's attention to a debate in this House in which I took part at the beginning of this year which took up a whole Friday. This is no reflection on the hon. Gentleman personally, but, though there have been many complaints by the Opposition about the alleged lack of accountability of the NEB, on that occasion, when we had a whole day to debate the NEB guidelines, there was a sparse attendance by the Opposition. That was unfortunate, in view of the observations that had been made on the subject.
Although we have recognised that the main provider of funds for British Leyland would be the NEB, it has also been


stressed, particularly by my right hon. Friend in his statement in March, that the company must continue to be a major generator of its own funds. If British Leyland wants to go ahead with the basic Ryder plan for the production of models right across the vehicle range, it must be a major generator of its own funds.
I shall refer briefly to the role of the multinationals in vehicles production in this country. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman recognises that they take their investment decisions in a slightly different way from us. Neverless, it has been Government policy to encourage them to continue to locate their production and assembly in this country. We hope that with the transfer of the Cavalier to this country, the increase in employment opportunities now being offered by Vauxhall at Ellesmere Port, the Alpine coming out of Ryton in Coventry and the Sunbeam coming from Linwood in Scotland the assembly policy of the multinationals in this country will continue.
Turning briefly to the components industry, I recognise, because I have had it addressed to me by deputations and on visits that I have made, that there is concern in the motor vehicle industry about the potential expansionist ambitions of British Leyland. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman knows that the components section of British Leyland has announced certain plans recently.
There has been a great deal of suspicion that this components manufacturing expansion will, in some way, be cross-subsidised from other activities. That is not British Leyland's ambition, and assurances have been given in that direction. Because there has been concern about the matter, and because there is a need to discuss the rôle of components in this field generally, a components industry working group was set up under the chairmanship of my right hon. Friend the Minister of State. Therefore, we have now established a forum in which these issues can be discussed.
It is encouraging to note that although some of the multinationals have been talking recently about shifting production out of Europe and into the Far East and other low-wage areas, and although there has been a tendency to move assembly out of Europe, the rôle of British component manufacturers in assembly centres outside Europe is being maintained.
Our components industry has had certain successes, as the hon. Member recognised, in the new assembly areas and in the United States. We have seen the expansion of Lucas and other component manufacturers in the United States. This is very encouraging and we want to see it continue.
Another matter raised by the hon. Member was the supposed or alleged lack of co-ordination between macroeconomic and micro-economic policy decisions. There was a great deal of concern, when the Chancellor introduced the company car tax plans, that these two had not quite meshed. But if the hon. Member looks at the basic strategy behind the decision on vehicle excise duty, and the decision on company car taxation I am sure that he will see that we recognised the deficiency of British manufacturers at the smaller end of the range.
It would have been easy for the Government to penalise the larger end of the market, which would have been to the advantage of small car producers—in the main, importers. I think that the Government's decision was fair. It recognised that in the small end of the range the British presence needs strengthening. We have taken that point on board, and this is emphasised in the declaration of the tripartite working group established by my right hon. Friend. Discussions in that group recognise the need for a better mesh of macro- and micro-economic policy decisions affecting the motor vehicle industry.
Finally there is the question of Japanese imports and the increased Japanese penetration of the market. The Japanese share of the car market has remained stable in the past two or three years at 9 to 9½ per cent as a result of assurances obtained from the Japanese manufacturers. In relation to possible penetration in light vans, trucks and buses, a deputation from the Society of Motor Manufactureres and Traders is going to Japan in September, and I hope that a similar understanding will be reached.
Obviously we recognise the magnitude of the task, following years of under-investment. We recognise the need for new models, a new model strategy and the need for reform of industrial relations. The Government, British Leyland and the NEB are under no illusions about the magnitude of the task.
Nevertheless, we want to have an indigenous motor manufacturer and our own manufacturing capability. It is to that end that our policy is directed. I believe that if we continue to work in the way that we have done, particularly over the past three months, we shall stand a chance of success.

Orders of the Day — PHARMACISTS (CHARGES)

3.0 a.m.

Dr. Gerard Vaughan: I raise this matter because we on the Opposition Benches are deeply concerned about the appalling financial situation that many chemists now face. It is extremely serious and I am sorry that we have had to raise the matter in this way, but it seems that the Government have not thought it sufficiently important for a full debate during the ordinary business of the House.
I have received a great many letters on this matter—just as hon. Members on both sides of the House have done. Many of my constituents in Reading have written to me, and I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, North (Mr. Durant) has also had a large number of letters.
Nearly 250 hon. Members have signed the Early-Day Motion of my hon. Friend the Member for Beeston (Mr. Lester), who, incidentally, has asked me to say that he would have been here had Her Majesty not been visiting his constituency. Those 250 signatures alone represent a remarkable show of support. Only three motions during this Parliament have had more signatures and none has received such complete support from all parties.
The situation is serious, for two reasons. The first is that the chemists have been most unjustly and unfairly treated. The second is that unless something is done about the situation the service available to the public will be still further reduced in the near future. The financial details are very complicated but the basic situation, unfortunately, is all too simple. Chemists are closing at the rate of one a day and many more would leave if they could find anyone to buy their businesses from them. In my constituency a number of chemists have told me that

they wish to retire but they are trapped and forced to carry on because they simply cannot dispose of the businesses into which they have put their life's work. They cannot pay their way and now the Government intend to reduce the money that a chemist has for his dispensing—to reduce the money that enables chemists to keep afloat.
The chemist on the corner, the small chemist in the side street, is rapidly disappearing, and already, in some parts of the country, it is now difficult for elderly people and those with young children to find a chemist near enough to them. This is so serious that I am sorry that the Secretary of State, who has been handling the negotiations with the profession and has responsibility for the situation, is not here tonight to explain to the House what it is that he is doing.
The pharmacist is a most important part of our health care team. At least 7 million visits are made each day to chemists by people seeking prescriptions, simple health remedies, advice and reassurance. Any doctor who thinks that he can do without the chemist should write his will, because without the chemist he would soon die from overwork. The chemist is a highly trained professional person who shoulders a great deal of the day to day work involved in the health care of the community that would otherwise fall on the hospital services. I suggest that at a time when we need to make greater use of pharmaceutical skills and training the Secretary of State is actually closing down the small chemists and reducing the scope of the pharmacist. It is no wonder that today the majority of pharmacists in training plan to go not into the retail chemists service but into hospitals or industry.
I cannot believe that the Secretary of State has looked into this matter personally and thought out the long-term effects of what he is doing. Earlier this year, he said that he intended to reduce chemists' income from the NHS by £11 million, and he justified it by saying that they now carried an average seven weeks' stock of drugs as opposed to 11 weeks as previously. Therefore, he argued, they should have less money. But chemists are being forced to carry less stock because they do not have sufficient money to pay for larger stocks. No allowance


is made by the Government for the chemists to replace stocks at prices that are increased by inflation. Drug costs are rising by 24·6 per cent. a year because of inflation.
A chemist with £5,000 worth of stock —which is a common figure and not a lot at today's prices—will have to find an extra £1,250 out of his own pocket simply in order to keep his stock up to the level of the preceding year. That is the effect of inflation.
There is no help from the Government and not even recognition of what is happening. The hardship of this is that the NHS remuneration of small chemists is designed to show a gross profit of only £1,600 a year. After tax, the chemist is left with £1,000 a year and he is supposed to find out of that the extra money to pay a rising drugs bill. I cannot see how that arithmetic works out.
This week, the Secretary of State seems to have realised some of the damage that he is doing and has apparently accepted the case put to him by the profession and agreed that at least the chemists that are most vulnerable to closure should be helped. But he is going to do it in a most peculiar, complicated and distorted way. He is still going to take the £11 million, but he intends to return £3 million to the chemists that are most under pressure, provided that—and this seems a gross and further injustice—the most successful chemists cough up an extra £2 million—making £5 million in all.
So poor chemists will have less taken away but will still be left with too little to manage, and the successful chemist will have to pay twice—his share of the £11 million and a share of the £2 million. This is extraordinary logic and arithmetic.
Two-thirds of our chemists will have a little less taken away from them and one-third—about 3,000—will lose their share of the £11 million and have to pay a share of the £2 million. I wonder whether the Minister understands that this complicated, penny-pinching, miserable policy will not halt the closing down of chemists. At its very best it will slow the process temporarily.
It is the small shop at the corner in the High Street that gives the most personal service. It is the sort of shop that perhaps helps the public most that will

be the hardest hit. Some 500 shops have been losing £1,787 each year on NHS dispensing. Even under the new proposals they will continue to lose over £600 a year. What profession can be expected to shoulder a burden of that size to pay for the privilege of doing work for which its members have been trained and which the public need?
Under the Price Code the Government have said that no business shall fall below a 3 per cent. net profit margin, but the chemists are in that position. The chemists' figure is only 2·8 per cent. Even on the Government's own standards the chemists are not being allowed to obtain a reasonable business living.
In 1974 the Government used the Price Code to restrict the chemists' pay, but not now. It is now quite different. The Price Code as applied to the chemists would now actually help the chemists and would make the Government increase the amount of money they make available.
Where is the justice in the present situation? Even now, when chemists are closing at the rate of one a day, it is not too late. I suggest that the Secretary of State should rise to his responsibility for health care, and that instead of being the executioner of the small chemist he should become the champion of the chemist on the corner. We ask him to stop this foolish and short-sighted policy before too much damage is done. I wait with interest, because we feel very strongly on this issue, to hear what the Minister has to say. If he understands what is going on, if he cares about a local personal service between the chemists and all the millions of people who seek local chemists' advice, will he please look at this matter again and give it a little more thought?

3.7 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. Eric Deakins): I am grateful to have this opportunity of explaining to the House the background to the discussion that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has been having with the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee about the remuneration that retail pharmacists receive for their National Health Service dispensing services.
The hon. Member for Reading, South (Dr. Vaughan) is misleading the House


when he says that the Government have not provided time for a debate. It has been possible for the Opposition to provide time. The Opposition have Supply Days, and they could have chosen this subject for debate at any time. They have chosen not to do so. I let others draw their own conclusion from that.
My right hon. Friend cannot be here tonight; he is in the middle of long and detailed negotiations with the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee. He is well aware of the issues involved. He has had two very full meetings in the past six weeks with the committee and discussions are still going on. I assure the House that the Government recognise the importance of maintaining a widespread network of dispensing pharmacies. I pay tribute to the high standard of professional service that is given to the community by thousands of pharmacists.
Chemists' NHS remuneration is a very complex matter, and it is bound to be so if the final outcome is to be fair to both taxpayer and pharmacist. Pharmacists are paid monthly—mainly by means of a professional fee, which is at present about 24½p per item dispensed, a standard oncost allowance of 10½ per cent. of the cost of drugs dispensed and a reimbursement of the cost of those drugs. The three principal elements used in the calculation of remuneration to pharmacists are labour costs, overhead costs and profit, which is defined, by agreement, as the product of a percentage return on the value of capital employed for NHS dispensing services.
Although the present dispute is not over the first two elements, which together make up 85 per cent. of all payments due, I think it is right for me, in order to set the present situation in perspective, to draw the House's attention to the fact that the present system identifies all labour and overhead costs, including property costs, incurred by pharmacists as a whole and reimburses them at current prices. The House will see, therefore, that pharmacists in general enjoy a guaranteed protection against inflation covering a substantial proportion of their NHS income—no mean benefit in present circumstances! In addition, a notional salary is credited in respect of each working proprietor.
I turn now to the third element in the remuneration package—profit. This is the item that has been at the centre of our

negotiations with the pharmacists over the last few months. As I indicated earlier, profit is expressed in the form of a percentage return-16 per cent.—on capital employed. The present arrangement dates from an agreement in 1972, although it is only fair to say that the pharmacists would have preferred profit to be defined as a percentage of total NHS turnover.
As drug prices have consistently outpaced all other costs, this would have inevitably given pharmacists an increasing profit which would have been hard on the taxpayer and not specifically related to any improvement in the service to the patient. A return on capital employed, on the other hand, directly rewards the investment which the pharmacist has made in order to provide an NHS dispensing service
Part of capital employed consists of money invested in fixtures and fittings used for NHS purposes, but by far the larger proportion—some 80 per cent.—consists of the stocks of drugs held on the shelves in the dispensary—that is, working capital. In 1972 it had been assumed for the purposes of arriving at the value of capital employed that pharmacists held, on average, 11 weeks' stocks. I emphasise "assumed", because it has a great deal of relevance to the present situation. An independent inquiry into stockholding was held in 1975 by a respected firm of valuers under the joint instructions of the PSNC and the Department. The findings of the inquiry disclosed that instead of an assumed 11 weeks' capital pharmacists held only seven weeks' stock of working capital. The inevitable consequence of this replacement of assumptions by facts was a reduction in the value of capital employed and a corresponding fall in the amount required from a 16 per cent. return on it. The fall in the amount of profit to which pharmacists are entitled under the terms of the 1972 agreement was £2 million in 1975, rising to £4 million in 1976 and £5 million in 1977 —hence the figure of £11 million so-called "cut" which we have heard so much about.
In order to offset the drop in entitlement arising from the stockholding inquiry, the PSNC submitted a claim in March 1976 for an increase in the percentage return on capital employed, but we have been unable to find any ground on which to increase the present rate of


16 per cent. The value of capital employed is constantly increasing in line with drug price inflation and it is, therefore, assessed on the basis of "current cost".
Pharmacists have, I know, drawn hon. Members' attention to their declining remuneration, but I would point out that the total sums due in 1975 were 23 per cent. higher than in 1974, with a further increase of 17 per cent. in 1976. Even after account has been taken of the new stockholding period, we expect that the sums payable in the current year will show another substantial increase.

Mr. Alan Haselhurst: I should like to be absolutely clear about this matter, in which I have declared an interest. Will the hon. Gentleman explain why pharmacies are continuing to close at an alarming rate? Will he also tell us how he can justify the continuing closure of pharmacies in rural areas, which has certainly been helped by the withdrawal of the rural subsidy for pharmacists, who believe that they are in business not only for their own interests—certainly—but also, perhaps, to provide a very valuable service to a rural community?

Mr. Deakins: I promise the hon. Gentleman that I shall come to that point later, because it is important. I was saying that there has been this increase in the total sums payable in the current year which will show another substantial increase. I should like to emphasise that there has never been any question of our reducing the current rates of fee or oncost in order to take account of the revised stockholding period. I am afraid that many retail pharmacists have got the impression that a cut of £11 million in their payments is imminent. I can give a categorical assurance that this is not so.

Dr. Vaughan: Is the Minister then saying that the situation which I have presented and the figures which I gave him are wrong? I would be glad to know.

Mr. Deakins: It is the interpretation which the hon. Gentleman has put on the figures that is incorrect. This is a complicated subject and I am doing my best to make it clear, but, obviously, there are a lot of figures involved. I am

sure that when the hon. Gentleman reads Hansard he will see that what I have said is correct.

Dr. Vaughan: Are my figures incorrect?

Mr. Deakins: What I have said is correct. That is all I am saying. I can give the hon. Gentleman and the House an assurance that the facts that I am presenting are perfectly correct. They are unchallengeable. Where there are figures which are a matter of interpretation, as, for example, with the stockholding inquiry, that is a different set of affairs. On the issue of closures, there again people can put their own interpretation on what is happening.
In the course of making representations on the profit margin claim the PSNC expressed its concern about the rate of closures of pharmacies and pointed out that many of its members were experiencing severe cash flow problems. When it met my right hon. Friend on 16th June he asked the PSNC to let him have fur-their details of the problems which smaller pharmacies in particular were facing and of the threat which this posed to the maintenance of the network of dispensing pharmacies.
The most striking fact that has emerged from these discussions has been the inequitable effect of the present flat-rate system of payment, under which every pharmicist, whether he dispenses 10,000, 30,000 or 60,000 prescriptions a year, is paid exactly the same fee per item and the same rate of on-cost. The result of this apparently egalitarian system is that many smaller pharmacies are not even covering their NHS operating costs, while many of the larger pharmacies are getting considerably more profit than the 16 per cent entitlement. This really is a case where some are more equal than others.
I hasten to add that the flat-rate system was not imposed by the present Government but was introduced in 1964 at the request of the pharmacists' own representatives. A general increase in the profit margin would do nothing to correct this imbalance.
My right hon. Friend met representatives of the PSNC again last Monday to continue discussions in the light of the


evidence to which I have referred and he is extremely concerned that something should be done to help the smaller pharmacies. He has, therefore, put forward certain proposals with this aim in view to the PSNC. He has offered to provide an additional sum of £5 million over two years in order to help launch a system of graduated payments which we hope will remove the worst inequities which exist at present.
Details of the offer and of our proposed scheme have been sent to the PSNC but, in broad terms, over 6,000 pharmacies would receive additional payments of up to £1,350 a year, of which some 2,750 would gain, on average, about £1,100, another 2,500 would receive an average sum of £700, and a further 1,500 about £200 a year. The larger pharmacies would lose some of their present excess over their entitlement, but on the basis of the evidence we feel that we are amply justified in asking them to help their smaller brethren.
We think that this is a practical way of meeting the needs of the smaller pharmacies which are most threatened with closure and which it is in the interests of patients to sustain. In a period of the most severe constraint on public expenditure it simply is not possible for us to do more. We certainly could not have contemplated meeting the PSNC's claims in full. They would have totalled about £27 million in the first year—an increase in remuneration of no less than 21· per cent. on top of the increased sums that would in any event become due as a result of rising labour and overhead costs and of the reassessment of capital employed at current values.

Mr. Haselhurst: In the calculation that the Minister has just made, is he saying that a pharmacy should be determined purely as a pharmacy but that if another business is attached this will be taken into account in determining its size, or is he basing the calculation purely on the service provided to the community?

Mr. Deakins: We are assessing it on the service to the community through the NHS dispensing service. Pharmacies vary. Some sell few things and others many things. I have set out clearly the basis on which pharmacies are remunerated and I do not wish to go back over it.
Hon. Members have mentioned the problem of pharmacy closures. It is true that in recent years there has been an annual decline of about 2 per cent. in the number of pharmacies. There are many contributory factors involved—for example, changes in shopping habits. I would not accept that the sole or even main cause has been the overall level of remuneration for NHS dispensing, although the evidence the PSNC has presented has convinced my right hon. Friend that the way that remuneration is distributed has played an important part.
We know that some closures have caused inconvenience and individual difficulty, and naturally we are sympathetic to the needs of less mobile people. But so far most closures have been in localities where there are other pharmacies. We have little evidence that they have caused widespread serious difficulties for patients. Only five of the pharmacies which closed in 1976 were more than one mile from another pharmacy. This is counter-balanced by the fact that of the 152 new pharmacies in 1976, five were more than one mile from another pharmacy.
Our aim is, of course, to maintain an adequate NHS dispensing service. We are concerned that the present rate of decline in the number of pharmacies shall not continue, lest serious gaps appear in the dispensing network. This aim is reflected in the discussions which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is having with the pharmaceutical profession about remuneration. I am convinced that it is not only just but necessary to achieve a more equitable distribution of the funds available, to reward the smaller pharmacy more fairly and thus improve its viability and continuing prospects.
My Department will continue to monitor closely the rate of closures and the extent to which it is altered by the changes that we are now trying to negotiate in the remuneration system. We may need to look at means of achieving a more even distribution of pharmacies in the longer term, in the interest of both public and pharmacists. I understand that both the PSNC and PSGB are already giving some thoughts to this. I can assure the House that we shall give due consideration to any proposals that they may put forward along these lines.

Orders of the Day — ENERGY CONSERVATION

3.24 a.m.

Mr. Peter Rost: At this hour we should be more concerned about conserving our energy by sleeping than by discussing it. It is a reflection of the low priority that the Government have so far given to energy conservation that we have not had the opportunity of a proper debate in Government time during the past three years. The only opportunity available to us to raise this issue of great national importance is at this ridiculous hour of the night. That is a sad reflection on the Government's attitude. I hope that the Minister will take this opportunity of correcting that impression.
I declare an interest which is well known to the House. I am a director of two small companies involved in giving advice on energy issues. But I have a more important interest to declare and it is more relevant to the subject of energy conservation. It is that I am a member of the human race and have four small children. That is a more important interest than any indirect or direct commercial one. I regard the question of energy conservation as far more serious and important a matter than simply commercial considerations.
I am pleased that the Minister has taken the trouble to wait up to this late hour to take part in this brief debate. I am aware that he has had to cancel important engagements elsewhere to he here at short notice. The House will also know that before the hon. Gentleman was promoted to his office in the Department of Energy he played an important part in the activities of the Select Committee of Science and Technology, of which I am a member, and that the Committee produced recommendations for an energy conservation programme. I am sure that he will not take it personally if I have to rebuke him.

The Under-Secretary of State for Energy (Dr. John A. Cunningham): Again!

Mr. Rost: Yes, again. I do so because the Government have not provided time to debate the Select Committee's Report on energy conservation—a report that was presented to this House two years ago. I hope that he will respond to my remarks

in a constructive, positive and honest manner instead of using the opportunity to repeat some of the more complacent platitudes we have heard from the Department of Energy in the past three years.
The reasons why I believe the Government must give priority to using less energy are well-known factors—factors which are not fully accepted—involving the contribution which it could make to the balance of payments, the cost-effectiveness in investment terms in a more rational use of energy, and the contribution to our national productivity and our standard of living, bearing in mind the fact that energy is likely to contribute an increasing proportion of our gross domestic production. Therefore, it is vital that we should waste less energy and that investment should be more cost-effective in future than it has been in the past.
The need for greater priority for investment in energy conservation is also related to the desirability for self-sufficiency in this country over a period of time and the independence which this will give us. But the most important justification of all, in my view, is the fact that it will lengthen the lead time that we shall have to fill the energy gap. The longer the time we have by wasting less energy in the meantime, the longer we shall have to get our solutions right and our technology improved and the easier we can make the provisions that will be necessary for alternative sources of energy in the years to come.
The Government's programme so far—and I do not wish to be derogatory and I shall give credit where it is due—has been primarily a publicity and educational campaign—the "Save It" campaign—which has been fine, as far as it has gone. But it has contributed only a marginal amount to savings, and has now run out of steam. The error into which we are falling is that we are inclined to regard a promotion campaign as a substitute for positive programmes. We have had a series of energy conservation schemes, hut the incentives have been marginal. What we have not had is the follow-through programme that is desperately needed.
I want to concentrate on two important areas where we have not done what we should and where substantial energy savings could result if the right incentives


were created. The first is thermal insulation. We are well aware that buildings take as much as 40 per cent. of our total primary energy consumption, yet two-thirds of that energy is wasted where there is not a reasonable standard of insulation. It is unsatisfactory that we still do not have positive incentives or improvement grants, that VAT is still chargeable on do-it-yourself insulation materials, and that there is a positive disincentive to people to improve their insulation because they are re-rated at a higher level for doing so.
Meanwhile, as was highlighted in an earlier debate, we are paying vast sums of public money to subsidise the heating for less-well-off families who cannot afford to insulate or to pay the present heating bills. It would be far more sensible to spend some of the money on providing incentives for insulation rather than to continue to subsidise heating and to go on wasting fuel.
We need better building insulation standards for new buildings. Why has not the Minister tried, for example, to promote, in combination with the electricity boards, a form of credit scheme for insulation similar to that by which the boards sell cookers, deep freezes and refrigerators, with payment being made in instalments with the electricity bills?
Our standards of thermal insulation are already much lower than those in the rest of Europe. Therefore, we have more catching up to do. Yet we are doing less than most of the EEC countries. Apart from Italy, we are the only EEC country with no direct incentive in the form of a tax allowance or a grant or loan for domestic insulation. The EEC has now issued a strong directive that all countries should be doing more in that direction. I know that the Minister is anxious to make an announcement that a more widespread scheme of incentives is under way and will be promoted before next winter. I hope that he will make such an announcement tonight.
The second area in which substantial savings in energy could result, not overnight but over a programme of several years, is in electricity production. We are virtually bottom of the European league in the production of electricity generation. We are also bottom of the league in the production of electricity

combined with heat where thermal efficiencies are much higher. That will not do. We must do more. The Plowden Committee Report of over a year ago made strong recommendations for the reorganisation of the electricity industry. Some of its recommendations referred to the wasteful use of fuel.
Two of the recommendations are most relevant to this aspect and require a Government response. They are recommendations 10·5 and 10·6 which are:
At present the industry's statutory duty is to provide 'an efficient, co-ordinated and economical system of electricity supply'. This duty should be changed to take into account the importance of energy conservation.
The next recommendation is:
In order to enable the CEB to initiate heat-and-power schemes, its power to sell heat should no longer be restricted to selling heat which is the by-product of electricity generation.
Let us consider what happens elsewhere. In Denmark 35 per cent. of electricity comes from combined heat and power. In Germany the figure is over 20 per cent., and in France over 17 per cent. The United Kingdom produces only 7 per cent. in that way, and nearly all of that is produced by private industry.
The EEC is now actively promoting and recommending a more rational use of energy by suggesting that there should be more incentive towards combined heat and power provision and that the disincentives that exist should be removed. Before long the pressure will come from Europe, as it rightly should, for us to begin to catch up.
The problem here is that there is no agreed method of economic analysis for combined heat and power schemes, that the CEGB is unenthusiastic, which is not surprising bearing in mind that it has 30 per cent. overcapacity, and that the Government have not directed the utility as a priority to take account of the longer-term aspects of energy conservation and energy economics.
We are still building power stations—for example Drax B—in the traditional method by which two-thirds of the fuel will be rejected as waste. It is time that we took aboard what is happening in the rest of the world and followed suit here. Only this week France has legislated to compel reject heat from power stations to be utilised in industry. Schemes are


flourishing in other parts of Europe—Germany and Sweden—and yet we are only just starting.
I am particularly interested to notice that the Midlands Electricity Board is promoting—at Hereford—the first combined heat and power station in Britain in the public utility sector. This will have a thermal efficiency twice the average of our electricity generating system. So it is beginning to happen, but it is not being promoted hard enough and the disincentives have not been removed by the Government.
Electricity production in Britain takes about 30 per cent. of our primary fuel which is, adding coal and oil together, the equivalent of 90 million tons of coal equivalent. Two-thirds of that—66 million tons of coal equivalent—is wasted in the cooling systems. The figures are eye-boggling.
I want to ask the Under-Secretary, who I know is sympathetic, how much longer he thinks that we as a nation and other countries can go on affording the scandalous squandering of finite and increasingly expensive fossil fuels. It is tempting to say that we have had three years of complacency from the Government on energy conservation, but that might be slightly unfair. There has been some move. Unfortunately, the attitude still is that the Government are prepared to support conservation except when and until that means doing something about it. We must not go on masking a promotion campaign as a policy. It is no alternative to an actual programme.
I conclude by putting six questions to the Under-Secretary. It is late at night and six questions will have to do, but these are questions which some of us have asked before. They demand an answer if the hon. Gentleman is to indicate his genuine good will towards the objectives we all share.
First, are the Government committed to the EEC recommended target of a 15 per cent. saving in energy as a result of conservation measures by 1985? It is a feasible target which should be reached and which other European countries are trying hard to achieve. If the Government are committed to it, when will they promote a programme which will achieve it? Secondly, when shall we get some

proper incentives for domestic thermal insulation?
Thirdly, when will the Government get a grip on the situation and show determination to remove the statutory restraints, the legal restraints and the institutional restraints which are holding back combined heat and power production? Fourthly, do the Government accept the Plowden Committee's recommendations on the need for a more rational use of energy through the electricity production system?
Fifth, why is it that in Europe all new nuclear power stations are being sited only where the reject heat will be applied in industry or through district heating, yet in this country we seem so far to have made no such provision? Shall we site our nuclear stations and all future power stations where the reject heat can be used? Finally, why are any new power stations being constructed without applying the reject heat in a more useful way?
A programme for energy conservation does not mean hardship or going without. As I have often said before, it means the opposite, because investment in energy conservation can stimulate the economy, it can produce much useful employment instead of phoney jobs such as we are getting under the Job Creation Programme, it can help to save scarce, expensive and exhaustible resources, and it can save public expenditure because, if we invest in reducing waste, we do not have to invest so much in providing new energy. Moreover, it can help the balance of payments. It can improve the efficiency and productivity of our industry and so help our standard of living. Above all, it can buy precious time, which in future years may be our most valuable asset, in order to allow us the time we shall desperately need to provide alternative energy resources over the next two or three decades.
The Minister has an opportunity tonight to dispel the widespread impression that the Government regard good intentions as a substitute for positive action.

3.46 a.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Energy (Dr. John A. Cunningham): I recognise the long interest of the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South-East (Mr. Rost) in energy conservation. As he said, he and I were colleagues together


on the Select Committee on Science and Technology for a number of years. However, I do not accept what the hon. Gentleman said about the lack of opportunity to debate the subject in the House. As recently as 10 days ago, we had a debate, which I introduced, on a number of EEC documents, three of which were specifically related to the more efficient use of energy, and the hon. Gentleman himself spoke from the Opposition Front Bench on that occasion.
If the Opposition have been so consumed with a desire to debate the subject, it has always been open to them to allocate one of their Supply Days, or part of one of their Supply Days, to it. I do not, therefore, accept any of the hon. Gentleman's strictures on the Government for failing to provide time for debate. As for commitments to debates on the subject, the hon. Gentleman knows very well that is a matter not for Under-Secretaries in any Department but for my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House.
Nor do I accept what the hon. Gentleman said about complacency on the Government's part in respect of the need for energy conservation. I think that my own activities, as the Minister responsible, alone contradict that argument. Moreover—to demonstrate the matter a little more effectively—at the conclusion of the Downing Street talks Her Majesty's Government, along with the other six participants, included the need for energy conservation as one of the seven points of the Summit declaration. Since coming into office, the Government have moved towards economic pricing of fuels. They have insisted that the nationalised fuel industries get out of the considerable deficit into which they were forced by the policies of the previous Tory Government, of which the hon. Gentleman was a supporter. We have made clear that energy must be sensibly used and economically priced. We have worked vigorously within the EEC for the development of energy conservation policies within Europe and within the International Energy Agency.
There is no evidence to suggest that in either national or international terms we have been slow to promote the need for a more rational, more effective and more efficient use of energy. I am very

much committed, as the hon. Gentleman said, to the need for us to make further progress in this area, and I recognise that there is considerable room for further progress to be made.
This is a problem of a disaggregated nature. There are a great number of small organisations and a great number of decision-takers, much removed from Government, involved in giving effect to whatever policies the Government may produce in this area. It is not a popular area in which we can make central decisions and expect them immediately to be implemented, or to become immediately effective in many cases. It is a very disaggregated area in which to work. It is also a relatively new area, in that much of our thinking is post-1973, as the hon. Gentleman knows, and we, like many other people, are at the beginning of studies to see how best we can give effect to some of the things that we want to bring about.
I did not agree with the hon. Gentleman when he said that the basis of our effort was simply the publicity for which we have been responsible in the "Save It" campaign. That has been the spearhead for bringing to the attention of the public the need for energy conservation. It has been specifically aimed at the domestic and industrial sector. But we have done much more than that. We published a White Paper in 1976, of which the hon. Gentleman is well aware.
We have a long list of policies in the industrial and commercial sectors which bring incentives of various kinds to people in industry. We have a very effective series of technical publications to bring technical advice to industry. Our energy conservation programme has been recognised internationally as effective and well thought out. This view is reflected in some of the reports which have been produced, of which I am sure the hon. Gentleman is aware. There is much more to what the Government have been doing than the "Save It" campaign.
The hon. Gentleman said that there had been no following through of what has been going on as a result of our energy conservation programmes. I will take two specific examples in industry to counteract that argument—the industrial energy audit scheme and the industrial energy thrift scheme. They are aimed at gathering from industry what is possible


in the field of energy conservation, and the programmes run by the Department of Industry are free of cost to those firms which are invited to participate. They will provide us with a detailed follow-through of what is possible and what has been happening as a result of some of the measures taken.
We are also assessing the effect of other aspects of Government policy in the conservation field. It is important that we follow this through and develop new policies where we can, based on the information and the experience gained from those already in existence, and we are doing that.
The hon. Gentleman spoke about the subjects most dear to his heart—insulation, the need for incentives, and combined heat and power. There is in existence already a tax allowance which enables people to claim 100 per cent. of the cost of insulating existing industrial buildings. We encourage industrialists to take advantage of that wherever and whenever possible. The Department of the Environment has currently circulated a discussion document on a further increase in insulation standards in industrial buildings. No one can say that in the industrial sector we are not acting positively or that incentives do not exist. On the contrary, they do.
Domestic insulation standards were almost doubled in 1975. My view is that it should be possible to improve upon that situation, but there are procedures to be gone through. Consultations would have to take place, particularly with local authorities, the building industry and so on. It is too facile to suggest that this can be done quickly or without proper consultation, particularly with organisatons specifically concerned with building design.
I turn now to the promotion of commercial programmes by those who sell insulating materials or by the nationalised fuel industries. We encourage them to sell systems, including insulation material, and we also aim a lot of our publicity and advice on domestic consumption of energy to people on that basis, and we shall go on doing so.
The question of incentives offered to consumers is for the industries, not the Minister. The Minister has no power as such over that matter. It is for the day-to-

day management decisions of the industries concerned.
The hon. Gentleman has spoken on a number of occasions on the subject of combined heat and power. The situation is largely the result of historical developments in urban and industrial environments in the United Kingdom. We have progressed differently from Eastern Europe and in some cases, as the hon. Gentleman pointed out, from countries within the EEC. It is not an easy matter to overturn our historic situation, certainly in a short time.
Our electricity generation has been developed on the basis of the national grid. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman was suggesting that we should scrap our approach and move away from the idea of having a national grid. If so, I think that he should spell it out and be more specific about it.
We have published a paper on the subject of power. We shall be producing a fuller report later this year or early next year. There are a number of problems. If we were developing new towns involving the building of new power stations, it would be possible to do so on the basis of more effective utilisation of energy. But, given our existing power stations and grid system, the only way that we could use much of the so-called waste heat would be to insist that people in the urban environments in which the power stations are located should swop to a steam or hot-water system coming from the power stations. We could not embark upon the massive capital investment involved unless we were sure that there would be a high take-up to ensure some return or at least some effectiveness in terms of the scheme.
That is not an easy political decision to take. It would require a Minister saying to a city such as Coventry, Bristol or perhaps Derby "All your bets are off in terms of your heating system. Whether you have invested in electricity, gas, solid fuel or oil, you will now pipe steam or hot water into your houses. That is the way that it is and you will like it." I do not think that would go down too well in a democracy. There are some genuine problems associated with the present situation which we have inherited.
We shall draw conclusions about the future in the light of the report that I have already mentioned, but I stress that


there is no easy or facile solution to the present situation.
The hon. Member made the point about the law and regulations. I assure him that this is being looked at. Although he did not mention it today, in the past —on the Coal Industry Bill and in letters to The Times—he has spoken of the need for further price increases as a fuel conservation measure. Here again I think that he should spell out what he is trying to say. He is not speaking from the Opposition Front Bench, therefore I cannot say that his views are Opposition policy, but if Conservatives are in favour of substantial price increases for fuels they should say so.
I noted the hon. Member's points about job creation and the need to get on with house insulation. I agree that there is a massive opportunity here to conserve more energy and to make a real contribution towards helping people who face difficulty with their higher energy bills.
I do not accept his rather derogatory comment about the Job Creation Programme. We have organised the programme in such a way that substantial funds are available, and very substantial discounts on materials have been negotiated with the installation manufacturers. Therefore local authorities can get the labour free and the materials at a very significant discount. I remind him that it is local authorities who control these decisions, not central Government. I would like to see the hon. Member and his colleagues telling the local authorities—mainly Conservative controlled—to get on with the job. That would be a much more effective way of getting some movement in this area than continually telling the Government to get moving. It is well-known that we do not have powers of direct action in this matter. It would make a real contribution if he could persuade local authorities to act. There is no shortage of money; it would create jobs and help people. Whatever expenditure was incurred could be recouped by the local authority through the rents.
I turn to the questions that were put to me. Certainly we are working with the EEC and will continue to do so, although we have never set specific targets and I do not see much gain in having specific numbers as targets on a

national scale. We are working with the EEC for a vigorous and effective conservation policy and we shall continue to do so.
We have been looking at incentives for domestic installations, and whether it is possible to give more. If so, we shall do so. I have already discussed combined heat and power in some detail, and I cannot add to that, or to what has already been said on previous occasions about reorganisation of the electricity industry.
The siting of power stations in the EEC is not a matter for me. But if power stations could be sited in areas where there is more effective use of the heat coming out from them, that would be sensible.
The Government are committed to the need for energy conservation. We, alone among Western industrial nations, shall soon be entering a period of energy self-sufficiency. We cannot afford to let that period delude us. We cannot isolate ourselves from the world energy situation. Therefore we must redouble our efforts to obtain a more effective energy conservation policy. I agree with the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South-East in that respect.
That does not mean that we need to go without energy or suffer deprivation. In many cases it means the reverse, and it can bring a stimulus to the economy create jobs, protect investment and make our energy more valuable than many people believe it already is by prolonging its lifetime. I also agree with the hon. Member there. It can bring us a further breathing space and make British industry more competitive.
I spend much time talking to industrialists about energy conservation. What surprises me is the vast spectrum of views that one finds in industry over this subject. Some industrialists show willing to commit resources and manpower to energy conservation. They have got on with making spectacular savings, they have cut energy input per unit of output and have increased their energy productivity. They have made themselves competitive and saved vital cash resources in the process. That is excellent.
On the other hand, I meet too many industrialists who say that they do not


have time for this or that it is not important, that they do not think that there is much in it for them because their energy costs arc a relatively small part of their overall costs. That is a dangerous and slothful attitude, particularly at a time when the major competitors of those industries are working to increase their energy efficiency.
As the House knows, the Government are currently engaged in a wide review of our energy conservation policies. That has already been mentioned in the House on a number of occasions. In the review we are taking full account of the recommendations, draft recommendations and directives of the EEC, the reports of the international energy agencies, and of the OECD and the valuable advice that we receive from the Secretary of State's Advisory Council on Energy Conservation. I pay tribute here to the work of that council and particularly the work that it has done in the last few months. It has recently produced a document outlining the priorities for action.
There have also been some debates in the House. We find the work of the Select Committee helpful and valuable and we shall consider carefully all the views that may be put to us in the House or by the Committee. The regular and numerous contacts that officials and my colleagues at the Department have with local authorities and industry have produced a number of interesting ideas, based on practical experience of the difficulties of high energy costs. A number of those ideas are being carefully considered. There are also results available from the considerable amount of research and development work that is being carried out on energy use and conservation.
I can assure the House and the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South-East that I remain totally committed to the need for a vigorous, developing and more effective energy conservation policy. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his courteous words about my role and I look forward to future debates on the subject.

Orders of the Day — TRANSPORT AND THE ENVIRONMENT (ESSEX)

4.10 a.m.

Mr. Tony Newton: I am glad of the opportunity to raise the subject of transport policy and the environment in Essex. The title of the debate is widely drawn in the hope that some of my hon. Friends may wish to contribute on the many matters arising out of transport policy in a county the size of Essex, but my main purpose is to talk about roads problems in the area generally and in my constituency particularly. There are many other transport problems that I could raise, but I am reluctant to take up the time of the House at this hour.
An important part of the background to the debate is the reductions in public expenditure and the consequent problems for roads spending as well as for other forms of public spending. Let me make clear immediately, if only to pre-empt a possible line of reply that the Minister may have been planning, that I have not raised this debate in order to play the game of agreeing with public expenditure cuts in general but demanding more public expenditure, especially in one's constituency, in particular.
I start with some general observations on the apparent priority given to transport expenditure, especially roads expenditure, on the longer-term basis—without necessarily arguing that the figures for this year are wrong. The recent White Paper gives striking figures about what has happened and what is intended to happen. Paragraph 246 says:
measures to contain public expenditure have already resulted in large reductions in the planned level of expenditure on the construction of new roads by central and local government—from £1.000 million in 1971–72 to £630 million in 1977–78.
That is an enormous cut of about 40 per cent. Paragraph 247 says:
investment in the English motorway and trunk road system will be no higher by the end of the decade than the reduced level for the current year.
After this enormous cut, we have the apparently strategic aim that roads expenditure will be held at this severely-truncated level for almost as far  as the eye can see.
I am not arguing that the money is not right this year, but I question whether it is an adequate reflection of the priority that we apply to roads expenditure in the longer term. People sometimes talk about the "road lobby". It appears to be a firmly-held view that there has been an enormously successful, commercially-motivated campaign to build roads and that this has dominated Government policy in recent years. I tell these people that I am more worried by the extent to which the anti-road lobby has become the conventional wisdom in a considerable part of the public discussion of these matters and in the totality of public expenditure. I am worried about the failure of many people to recognise that, far from being environmentally damaging, roads, especially by-passes for small towns and villages, are critical for preserving the environment of many hundreds of thousands of people throughout Essex and, no doubt, in many other places.
The White Paper contains some welcome words, but for reasons that are implicit in what I have said I am doubtful whether the Government's policies and the decisions that are being made measure up to their aspirations and apparent acceptance of the environmental points that I have sought to make.
I yield to no one in my admiration of the work that has been done in recent years by the conservation groups in raising environmental issues and making people more aware of environmental problems—not only traffic but noise and pollution in various forms. However, in one sense they have succeeded in a curious kind of overkill that is now, in terms of some road schemes, actively damaging to conservation and damaging to the environment. There is a need for us in public discussion clearly and firmly to redress that balance and the bias that has begun to creep into policy against road expenditure without recognising what it can do for the environment.
There is also the industrial efficiency factor, which cannot be dismissed. The Orange Paper and the White Paper which succeeded it were sensible documents in getting away from the crude belief that it is possible to solve transport problems by pushing huge quantities of traffic back on the railways. That is shown to be a myth in the Orange Paper and the White

Paper. However, it follows that if the railways do not provide an easy answer to traffic and transport problems, there will be a substantial efficiency penalty to be paid if we put inadequate resources into improving the road network. With those general observations I turn to Essex.
Even if the Minister did not fully accept what I have just said, even if he feels that the priority attached to road expenditure in the Government's plans for the years ahead is absolutely right, I would still want to maintain—I have no doubt that I should have strong support from my hon. Friends who represent other Essex constituencies—that Essex has not been fairly treated in the allocation of its share of the resources available for roads expenditure. We have a county whose population has grown rapidly. That is partly as a result of the movement, encouraged by Government and Greater London Council policy over many years, of population out of London. In my view nothing like enough has been done to create the additional infrastructure to support that policy, not just in terms of roads but in respect of hospitals and the whole range of other public facilities.
As I have said to the Secretary of State for the Environment, there is a good deal of resentment in Essex and comparable counties around London that, having officially pushed large chunks of population out of London into Essex and failed to provide facilities to cope with the increased population, the Government now face us with a switch of policy that is moving resources back from counties around London into London. That cannot be right. Grave population pressure problems having been created in Essex and comparable counties, we have a right to expect that the Government will solve the problems that have been created for us before shifting back the resources to where the people have ceased to be.
I am not in any way making a general attack on the concept of improving policy for renovating the inner cities. All that I say is that it does not make sense to move the population out of the cities, to fail to provide it with facilities and then to move money back into the cities again. I think that the plans for such a policy in the next few years need further consideration.
This year Essex has suffered as a result of the Government's redistribution of resources through the rate support grant. There has been a loss of £15 million in the needs element under the rate support grant. On top of that, the transport supplementary grant has been reduced from £2·3 million in 1976–77 to only £36,000 in 1977–78 at November 1975 prices. In November 1976 prices that is a little more, but we are still talking about a drop from £2·3 million to around £40,000 in transport supplementary grant apart from the general reduction in the resources available to the country under rate support grant as a whole as a result of £15 million being knocked off that.
The county contends that both the RSG cuts and the TSG cuts arise primarily because it was among the local government organisations which actually did what the Government asked them to do in restraining their expenditure in previous years. In the case of TSG, the result of the county heeding the Government's requests was that it fell below the threshold level by reference to which these things are calculated. To all intents and purposes, therefore, having done what the Government wanted in a national economic context, the county finds itself penalised now by having virtually no transport supplementary grant at all.
The county believes, and I believe, that that is very unfair. I know that the county has made strong representations to the Minister about this. I hope that he will re-examine this matter and put it right in future years.
The effect of these combined reductions of grant from central Government on the roads expenditure can be imagined. The result is that in the present year the county hardly has the capital resources to do more than one significant project anywhere in a very sizeable county. I cannot speak about the effects of this on the whole of Essex. I would not attempt to do so. However, I should like to comment on the effects on, and some of the problems within, my Braintree constituency.
In the last few months, at least six parish councils have formally approached me about their worries as they see that the schemes they believe to be needed are fading into the distance. I have also had approaches from many individual consti-

tuents and groups concerned with particular problems in particular towns and villages.
I want to make my comments under two heads, the first being that of the Al20. I should like to refer to "Strategy for the South-East: 1976 Review", published in 1976, and to quote from what is said about the road system in the South-East generally. Paragraph 5.95 states,
There is a relatively limited number of existing local authority roads in the region which are inter-urban links of regional significance in their own right and which are operationally and environmentally inadequate for the function they have to perform. While it is possible now for 'less-than-national' and 'more-than-local' needs to be identified, the present allocation system for funds does not appear to accord due weight to such needs.
Paragraph 5·99 states,
The priority given by the Government to trunk roads to seaports is noted and supported but there is a need also to improve local authority roads—such as the Al20 to Harwich and the other Haven Ports.
The document does not specifically link those two statements, but I should like to link them.
The Al20 is very much one of those roads which are less than national but undoubtedly more than local, and on which I doubt whether the present allocation system gives due weight to the need for improvement.
This is of particular concern to me because the Al20 cuts right across my constituency, and there is no doubt that the amount of traffic on it has grown enormously with the growth in port traffic from Harwich and the other Haven Ports, partly stimulated by our entry into the Common Market. The road enters my constituency from the constituency of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Colchester (Mr. Buck), who has specifically asked me to say tonight that he would want to express his concern about the situation. From Marks Tey in his constituency, it comes into mine. It goes through Coggeshall, a very old, very beautiful small town with medieval streets, in many cases with houses whose front doors open straight on to the road, with virtually no pavement, and whose residents have huge juggernauts going past their front doors, shaking the buildings to bits and doing enormous damage to what is undoubtedly one of the nicest towns in the county.
The road then passes into Braintree where it clashes with cross-flows of traffic on other roads, which causes enormous congestion and contributes to the damage to another significant conservation area, namely, Bradford Street, which is not itself on the Al20 but which contains many fine buildings and is being damaged by the consequential traffic problems.
It then passes into the village of Rayne, another pleasant village which is unfortunate enough to have a relatively straight road going through it which carries all this traffic at quite high speeds. These problems, already very serious because of the growing port traffic, are now being exacerbated by the opening of a significant stretch of the M11. They have passed the point where we can simply defer doing anything about them.
Since my hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. Haselhurst) is present I should point out that that road leaves Rayne in my constituency and rapidly passes into Dunmow in my hon. Friend's constituency, which suffers from similar problems.
I believe that in the context in which I have already quoted from the South-East Strategy Review the Minister's Department should be prepared to recognise the importance of this road and the need to put more Ministry funds into doing what is essential—to provide a by pass or other relieving measures for the towns that I have mentioned.
That is the first problem on which I wanted to touch. The second is the problem in and around the county town of Chelmsford. My hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr. St. John-Stevas) is equally concerned about the problems that are being created there. It is a town which has grown a great deal, not least as a commuter railhead with all the traffic that that implies in and out of the town morning and evening. The result is that the town itself is clogged and the traffic is forced on to utterly unsuitable rural lanes and does great damage to all the villages, a considerable number of which are in my constituency and in one of which I live.
There is an urgent need for roads to relieve these problems but once again they are slipping further and further into

the future. Not only does that worry me, but it will do very great damage to the environment of what are in all cases very pleasant villages which badly need relief.
There is another specific problem that I should like to mention and in which the Minister is also involved. That is the Army and Navy roundabout which is the junction between the Al2 Ministry trunk road and the A130. The Minister must be familiar with this problem. If not, his Department certainly is. I shall not attempt to go over the whole background to this. The Minister knows that there have been exhibitions, inquiries and in the end long years of delay over deciding any route for a Chelmsford—Al2 bypass. The present situation is that the Minister's original proposals were in effect ruled out by a public inquiry and no one is yet sure what exactly is to happen. We hope that we shall learn something later in the year.
Meanwhile it has been agreed that it simply cannot be left as it stands and that a fly-over has to be put over the roundabout in order to prevent almost total seizure. There is now an argument between the county and the Department about the sharing of costs. From what the county surveyor said to me today, the Minister's Department has said that it is prepared to pay only 36 per cent. I hope that I have the figure right. That was the figure that I was given during a telephone conversation earlier today.
If that is so, I want to ask the Minister seriously to take another look at this. The major beneficiary of this scheme will be the trunk road traffic on the Ministry road and the Al2. Because of the delay in having a proper by pass, at least some considerable measure of blame can be attached to the Department over the years. In view of the cut in resources already available to Essex for road schemes, it is disgraceful that the Department is not prepared to offer some more generous arrangement for the funding of this particular scheme. At the minimum, a 50:50 basis is required. I hope to hear of some sign of movement on that from the Minister tonight.
I have two further issues that I should like to take up with the Minister. The Al2 is roughly the boundary of my constituency. Undoubtedly it has been of


great benefit to the villages and towns for which it provides bypasses. But, because of the grave lack of proper facilities, especially for heavy lorries and coaches, anywhere along the road and certainly in my constituency, there is a serious tendency for traffic which was supposed to have been kept out of the villages and towns to go back into them because they are the only places where food and other facilities can be obtained. This is a particular problem in Hatfield Peverel, Witham and Kelvedon. I hope that the Minister will look at the facilities with a view to taking positive action to keep out of the villages and towns the traffic that should be kept out and for which the road was designed.
I recognise that many of these problems will not be solved for some time. Meanwhile our towns and villages are suffering increasing dangers from the speed and volume of traffic. Yet it is sometimes almost impossible to get anything done to apply reasonable speed limits or to achieve pedestrian crossings, both of which are necessary to protect our children, the elderly and others.
There is a strong feeling, shared by the Chelmsford District Council, that the Ministry's present rules for speed limits and pedestrian crossings are too restrictive. Some people believe that the Ministry's attitude is that a speed limit or pedestrian crossing cannot be established until enough people are killed on a particular road. I understand that there must be some limits, but the Ministry's rules are too rigid. They do not allow local authorities sufficient discretion to take account of local needs and opinion. I hope that the Minister will examine that problem.
I shall sum up. The first thing that I want tonight is a clear recognition of the environmental importance of expenditure on roads. I do not want mere verbal recognition in a White Paper but some clear recognition that it will be reflected in expenditure plans.
Secondly, I want an undertaking that the treatment of Essex under the transport supplementary grant system will be reviewed. It is not right that a county with a population of that size, and which has increased so much, should now be receiving practically no transport supplementary grant.
Thirdly, I want the Minister to say that he will look at the Al20 with a view to saying that the Ministry is willing to take a larger responsibility for paying for improvements to it, because of its "morethan-local" importance in the sense mentioned by the South-East Strategy Review. Fourthly, I want an undertaking that the Minister will look again at the question of Ministry contribution to the proposed fly-over at the Army and Navy roundabout. Fifthly, the Minister must look at the facilities for heavy lorries and coaches on the Al2. Finally, he should say that he will introduce a more flexible policy for speed limits and pedestrian crossings.

4.34 a.m.

Mr. Alan Haselhurst (Saffron Walden): I shall not detain the House at this late hour, but I must support the general comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (Mr. Newton) and lend emphasis to many of the particular points that he made. I do not have my hon. Friend's experience of the county of Essex, but it is apparent that a critical situation faces the county. I have considerable sympathy with the case he advanced, and I support his pleas to the Minister.
I accept entirely the general trend of my hon. Friend's argument that we are making a case for the needs of our county against a background of severe public expenditure cuts. One cannot be unaware of that factor and one is not trying to ask the Minister for the impossible. But if the Department is responsible for making cuts, it must envisage their consequences and not simply say that it is a matter for the county to work out for itself. There must be an element of sympathy and co-operation from the Department towards the county, otherwise the county will not be able to cope with all the things it has to do.
The fact that the supplemental grant has been cut as much as it has places the county of Essex in an impossible situation in meeting its commitments in the upkeep and development of roads. If there is to be any kind of effective subsidy for public transport for the users in the county this year, some money must come out of the grant and therefore there


will be less available for road maintenance. These are difficult decisions that face the county.
I wish to emphasise what my hon. Friend said about the Army and Navy fly-over project. It is a £530,000 scheme, and if the Ministry is determined to stick at a contribution of only 36 per cent., it will create a difficult situation for the county. That will have a consequential effect on other projects which are of great importance to the citizens of Essex. In other words, we cannot eat our cake and have it. We are working within a tight budget—indeed, a budget that we regard as over-restrictive—and we know that certain things will disappear altogether if priority is given to that project. We look to the Ministry to ease our burden on that project because it has implications that go beyond merely county considerations.
I am concerned on behalf of my constituents about what will happen to the A120 as that road leaves my hon. Friend's constituency and enters mine. The matter of a bypass for Great Dun mow is in the schedule and has managed to remain there, despite the cuts which have had to be made. It is a question whether it can remain in the schedule if the county is forced to divert money to the projects which have already been mentioned. Will money be taken out of the general kitty for bus transport so as to reduce the total amount available for road improvement?
The Ministry cannot wash its hands of this matter. Because of their effect on the county, it must follow through the decisions which it makes. The Minister should give some clearer comments about what he envisages might happen because these are matters that should concern his Ministry, as they certainly concern us.
For example, Essex puts at a rather low priority the development of the A604 compared with the development of the Al20. The counties of Cambridge and Suffolk take a different view of the priority for the development of the A604. If reduced resources are available, and if different counties vary in their judgment of the relative importance of the roads as though roads carrying heavy lorries

from the Midlands to the ports, somebody must adjudicate if Essex is reacting by saying "We are being treated meanly by the Department. We have other projects but cannot be expected necessarily to be able to make every desirable improvement that could be enumerated".
Then there is the question of the M25. That is linked with the development of the A13, if we are speaking of the county as a whole. There has been a hold-up in the development of the M25, I believe because of legal complications. When that matter is resolved it also will have expensive implications for the county.
The prospect looms of a link between the M11 and Ml, which might be seen to have some connection with the flow of traffic towards Stansted Airport and the possible future development of that airport. I do not know what priority that has in the Department, but there may well be strong views in Essex about whether money should be diverted in that direction instead of to some of the projects we have mentioned tonight.
In the mean expenditure climate that the Department has forced on the county, the Minister has a duty to be more considerate with regard to the questions that he is forcing the county to answer. He should try to be understanding and make it easier for the county to see which priorities it is more sensible to observe. If he can oil the wheels to some extent by the reconsideration for which my hon. Friend called, he can perhaps make it possible for the county to reach more sensible decisions. That would be good not only for the county but perhaps for wider road pattern implications, and be of considerable help to the citizens of the county that my hon. Friend and I jointly represent, with others of my hon. Friends. I must naturally speak for my own constituents, who could be affected by the decisions implicit in the grant that the Department is making to the county.

4.43 a.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. John Horam): The hon. Members for Braintree (Mr. Newton) and Saffron Walden (Mr. Haselhurst) concentrated on roads in Essex, and I, too, will concentrate mainly on the roads rather than other transport problems,


especially as the hon. Member for Braintree has spoken about those matters on other occasions. Nevertheless, the hon. Gentleman was right to link the problems.
The hon. Gentleman asked whether it was right to keep road spending as a whole down to the levels we have seen this year. One must think of the relative spending on roads as opposed to the relative spending on other parts of the transport system. The hon. Gentleman has made it plain in previous debates which he has initiated that in an inflationary period we must be concerned about higher costs in the bus industry and on the railways leading to severe consequences for commuters and other travellers by bus and rail. Those consequences include the disappearance of bus services in parts of rural Essex, which is as badly hit as any other county in this respect. Clearly, at a time when costs are rising for inflationary reasons, that is something to which we must pay attention, not merely for social reasons. There is an economic factor here. People have to get to work. In addition, London and the towns near London need to sustain their economies and a vigorous commercial life. A sensible public transport system is part of that.
Our priorities must be seen in those terms. Those priorities give some marginal preference in the immediate future —it is not a large sum against the background of the total figures involved—to public transport, and that is right in terms of industrial and social needs, as well as of the policy to counter inflation.
Expenditure on roads—both local authority and Government—was running at about £1,000 million. That is now falling to about £630 million for new roads, not including expenditure on maintenance. That is still a large sum by any standard. For about 15 years we have enjoyed a very high level of expenditure on roads—a level unprecedented in our history. We have in that time established a motorway network and have made considerable improvements in most of our major roads, including some urban routes.
There has therefore been a sensible switch of resources which retains roads expenditure at a high level in relation to need. We have made it plain that,

within the totals, we envisage a change in the philosophy of the roads programme, with less emphasis on the steady unrolling of a sort of Schlieffen plan for roads whereby we construct everything to a uniform standard along routes which have been marked down long ago.
Instead, we shall concentrate on meeting need where it is most pressing. Since we do not feel able or think it right to shift too much traffic from road to rail, we are concentrating on bypasses for villages and towns along industry routes. We accept the severe strains which are faced in many instances, strains which must be relieved as soon as possible. All of this makes for an integrated whole, a policy which hangs together.
The question of rate support grant and transport supplementary grant has been raised. I am not responsible for rate support grant. Within the Department, however, resources are not being shifted from the shires to the urban areas. On the contrary, it is plain from the White Paper that more money will be made available for rural bus services, for example, while urban bus services will have to live with totals of the kind they have at the moment.
Equally, there is more money made available for concessionary fare schemes. As they are poorest in the shire areas, that, too, will be an additional amount of money available for rural areas. As regards the resources deployed by my Department, there is likely to be a shift, though admittedly a small shift, from urban to rural areas.
I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the transport supplementary grant does not work well from the point of view of Essex. It is a problem with grants of this kind. It applies to the RSG. There has been considerable complaint about that from counties such as Cambridge, to the effect that when grants are worked out on a formula which is inevitably rather crude some counties will do worse than others, and often it is difficult to justify or even explain it in any meaningful terms. The Layfield Committee conducted a major investigation into this problem.
It is fair to say that Essex has not done very well. As a consequence, we are examining the formula for the distribution of TSG in the case of Essex as in


the case of a number of other counties that do not do well from it, with a view to seeing what can be done. I make no commitment. The point has been repeatedly made, and we have taken it. So we are examining the formula for next year with this problem, among others, in mind. However, I make no commitment.
It partly reflects a history of low spending in relation to population in Essex. This has been a matter of the county's choice over previous years. We believe that every county has a right to make its distribution of resources between the various types of services. On the whole, Essex, although it has been a reasonable spender, has not been a very high spender per head of population.
The TSG is meant to help those with exceptional need. It is designed to operate above a threshold precisely for that reason. There has clearly been some misunderstanding by Essex of the way the grant works. That was plain in the early years. The misunderstanding has been ironed out. None the less, there was a problem—I do not quite know why, because everyone else seemed to understand it fairly well—which led Essex to misconstrue what was coming to it under the system as it works.
I come now to particular schemes and roads mentioned by the hon. Gentleman. As regards the Al20 to Harwich and the Haven Ports, as the hon. Gentleman knows—clearly he has read the White Paper—we attach great importance to the ports. They are among the very highest priorities in our road building schemes, and obviously we shall expect the local authorities, if they are responsible for all or part of a road, to reflect those general priorities, though obviously the authorities have their own choices about this matter. I assure the hon. Gentleman that that priority remains and that we attach the greatest importance to it. Therefore, if it is possible for spending to go on as it is now, that road should be well placed and schemes in connection therewith should maintain their existing priority.
Incidentally, we are reviewing all schemes as a result of the new policy we are adopting. That review will be fairly rapid. Schemes on roads to the ports will certainly be accorded not less than

their present priority and, if possible, will be accorded higher priority.
I come next to the question of the Chelmsford bypass and the Army and Navy roundabout. I shall look into the question of the 36 per cent. grant offered by the Government, as I understand it, in the present state of negotiations, and I shall write to both hon. Gentlemen about that when I have had an opportunity to go into it. I am not immediately familiar with the present state of play on that, and, after I have looked into the matter, I shall write to them.
I am sure that hon. Gentlemen will accept that this has been an outstanding problem for some time, because of the result of the public inquiry into the Chelmsford south bypass. I do not accept any blame on the part of the Department in this respect. I think that it is a consequence of local fears and the nature of the public inquiry system, which is now leading to long delays. Whereas 10 years ago it took five years to build a road, it now takes 10 to 12 years. We are anxious to keep that delaying process to a minimum, and we are always looking for ways to shorten it, but on a difficult problem such as this it is not easy to do so.
Next, I take the A 12 and the question of the services on that road. This is a general problem on various routes which has been brought to our attention on more than one occasion by lorry drivers. We are anxious to see further facilities provided. Only the other week, I had a meeting with representatives of the Transport and General Workers' Union about this general problem. They have been pressing me for more toilet facilities and café facilities on these routes, because the drivers do not want to move off the routes and to have to go through small villages. I accept the general point in that respect, and, in looking into the question of the Army and Navy roundabout, I shall ask my officials to examine the situation on the Al2 and to write to the hon. Gentleman about that as well. I do not exactly know what the level of services is on the Al2, but I shall have it looked at to see whether any proposals are in hand to improve the state of affairs there.
I come to the question of speed limits. I think that, very often, people have a feeling that the Department's regulations are more inflexible than in fact they are.
It is not true, for example, that there must be a certain number of accidents before one can have a zebra crossing. Other factors are taken into account, such as the speeds travelled by motorists and lorry drivers over a particular stretch of road. It is important to have a speed limit related in some way to the speeds which are regarded by drivers as natural over a particular road, because if one sets it too far away from that level there is the problem of enforceability, people just disregard it, the law is brought into disrepute, and there is a problem generally, quite apart from the local area. A number of factors are therefore taken into account.
In addition, the actual nature of the road and the immediate physical circumstances are examined when a speed limit is determined. There is, therefore, a local input as well as national criteria. That makes the process more flexible than some people may imagine. However, again I accept—the philosophy is apparent in the White Paper—that local authorities should have the maximum say in their local transport policies and plans, and speed limits are an important part of that. They are very often the matters about which small communities feel strongly. They feel that the speed limit question is one on which they can make their opinion felt. Indeed, it is one of the few remaining matters on which small parish councils feel they can have a say.
Therefore, we have an obligation to consult carefully. We are looking into whether we can increase the say of local authorities in deciding the level of speed limits in their areas while at the same time maintaining the obvious requirement that we must not have an eruption of different speed limits or different conceptions of speed limits in different areas, because then the ordinary motorist might well become more rapidly confused than he is at the moment and standards of safety and of driving might deteriorate.

Mr. Newton: Will the Minister tell me whether the Ministry is looking at the question of rumble strips which are used in Norfolk, I gather, and could be a contributory answer to these problems?

Mr. Horam: Rumble strips can he very effective. There is a scheme in North London at the moment, and the bumps in the roads are lowering speeds con-

siderably in a particularly congested area. There is one in Kensington which for some reason is almost totally ineffective. There is quite a lot of investigation into it at the moment and we regard it as a very promising way of checking traffic flow. We should certainly consider it if there were a case for it in any particular area.
The hon. Member for Saffron Walden put forward the general argument that the Government must consider the relationship between local authority spending on roads and Government spending on roads. I think he was hinting at the fact that we had cut down on expenditure, and that we must be aware that there was a relationship between Government schemes and local authority schemes, which local authorities may regard as more important in some instances than the Government schemes, and that we must kep a close eye on the relationship between the two.
The biggest cut recently—last December—was in Government schemes, to the extent of £50 million, and in the most recent exercise we have taken the biggest burden ourselves, leaving local authorities relatively unscathed. The conjunction between local authority and Government schemes is something that we are constantly talking about with the local authorities, and we are aware of its importance, because it very often seems wrong in the eyes of local authorities that some national schemes should be going ahead when related local schemes are slowed down. We clearly have to keep an eye on that.
In one or two particular cases I shall write to hon. Members concerning the points they have raised, as soon as I have had the opportunity of a good holiday.

Orders of the Day — SECURITY SERVICES

5.2 p.m.

Mr. Peter Blaker (Blackpool, South): When I asked for the opportunity to debate the security services, I intended to refer only to two newspaper reports—those in. The Observer newspaper of 17th and 24th July. Any hon. Member who has read those reports will have found them profoundly disturbing. I felt that, unless something were done, public confidence in the security services would be


shaken, as would the morale of the services themselves. Since then—indeed, this morning—another report which has appeared in another newspaper has reinforced that view. I think it necessary to put on record what is contained in these three reports, or at least the gist of it, before I go on to draw some conclusions.
The first article in the Observer reports allegations made by the right hon. Member for Huyton (Sir H. Wilson) that MI 5 was both incompetent and politically biased against himself, his entourage and Labour Ministers. He is reported as saying that in 1969 the head of MI 5 met the right hon. Gentleman to report to him information obtained from a Czech defector and that at that meeting the head of MI 5 muddled the present Foreign Secretary with Will Owen, a former Member of this House, who was acquitted at the Old Bailey of passing State secrets to the Czechoslovak authorities, although he admitted receiving about £2,300 from them.
The right hon. Gentleman is also reported as saying that in July 1974 MI 5 told him that it had documentary evidence that the right hon. Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart) had attended a Communist meeting in an East European capital. According to the right hon. Gentleman, MI 5 had confused the right hon. Lady with a Mrs. Tudor Hart, the wife of a member of the British Communist Party. Therefore, we have two allegations of confusion on the part of MI 5.
The report continued that, according to the right hon. Member for Huyton, the head of MI 5 confirmed the existence within his service of a disaffected faction with extreme Right-wing views. It reports the right hon. Gentleman as having said that the service contained a faction sympathetic to the South African and Rhodesian authorities.
The report goes on to quote the right hon. Gentleman as declaring, first, that MI 5 was saying that he was tied tip with the Communists, and that MI 5 knew this; secondly, that for the last eight months when he was Prime Minister he was not certain that he knew what was happening, fully, in security; and, thirdly, that he was worried at reports reaching him through Lady Falkender that the CIA might be involved in

attempts to infiltrate No. 10 Downing Street, and that he checked on this through the Americans, evidently because he did not trust the British security services.
In a passage which I can only describe as surrealist, the right hon. Gentleman is reported as describing himself to journalists as
a spider, sitting at the centre of a web of information, who could give them some valuable leads.
The passage continues:
Occasionally when we meet",
he said cryptically,
I might tell you to go to Charing Cross Road and kick a blind man sitting on the corner. That blind man may tell you something, lead you somewhere.
In The Observer of 24th July it was reported that there was an even more serious event of which account should be taken—that important information about British counter-intelligence services was feared to have been lost to the KGB in the mid-1960s through a former high-ranking MI 5 officer who worked for the Russians while remaining at his job in the West. It is not entirely clear from the article that this information, too, came from the right hon. Member for Huyton, though, as I read the report, that is the implication.
I turn now to the third of the reports that I mentioned earlier. That is a report in today's Daily Express, which I have with me. I should like to read an extract from that newspaper. This is described as a "Chapman Pincher Exclusive". The extract reads:
The suspicion of Sir Harold Wilson that he was 'bugged' by British security men when Prime Minister has turned out to be fully justified.
Inquiries have established that he was under electronic surveillance in No. 10 Downing Street on several occasions during his eight years there.
Sir Harold has revealed that he believes certain officials in MI5, the counter-espionage organisation, suspected the existence of a Communist 'cell' in his Government.
He has even said that a small number of MI 5 men suspected that he and his secretary, Lady Falkender, were part of it.
We have here some astonishing, grave and alarming allegations.
Before I go any further I must say something about the choice of Minister who is to reply to the debate, if she


catches your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Halifax (Dr. Summerskill), and I came into the House at the same time, and I have great respect for her. But I am surprised that she, not the Home Secretary, has been chosen to answer this debate. She is not yet a Privy Councillor, and therefore she cannot be informed of the secret information that I would expect to be necessary for any Minister who replies to this debate. The Home Secretary himself should have come here to deal with such an important subject.
I telephoned the Home Secretary's private office yesterday morning to say that I proposed to raise this matter, and I referred expressly to the articles in The Observer. Of course, I could not refer to the article in the Daily Express, as that had not appeared at that stage. It must have been perfectly clear to the Home Secretary that I would be raising a very delicate matter.
What can we make of this astounding story? When I read the first story in The Observer I thought that the right hon. Member for Huyton must have been misquoted. But 11 days have passed since the story appeared, and four days have passed since the second story, and there has been no denial from the right hon. Member. Therefore, we must assume that he was correctly quoted. He has not disowned the remarks attributed to him. It is a pity that he is not here this morning, despite the lateness of the hour. I sent him a message on Wednesday telling him that I proposed to raise the matters referred to in the two articles.
The House and the country will want time to consider the implications of the latest report in the Daily Express, but my views on the three stories are these. I believe that it is imperative that the Prime Minister should come to the House today—the last opportunity before we rise for three months' recess—and make a statement about these very grave reports. I gave notice to the Home Secretary's office that I would make such a suggestion, so the Prime Minister has had 24 hours in which to take a decision to come here, brief himself, and make a statement. I hope that he will do so.
The House and the country will want to know the truth about these allegations, and how it is that an ex-Prime Minister, who was responsible for the security

services in that capacity, came to make a public attack through the Press on the competence and impartiality of the services. It simply cannot be right for allegations against the security services to be made publicly by an ex-Prime Minister, whatever the merits of the case or the truth about the' allegations. The security services are the most sensitive arms of Government, and on them our safety literally depends. I hope that the Minister will comment on the fact that it seems clear that a breach of the Official Secrets Act by the former Prime Minister is involved, if not also a breach of his oath as a Privy Councillor.
It is not enough for the security services to he efficient—and we want reassurance from the Prime Minister on that point; they must also be impartial between parties that support the interests of the nation, and the public should have confidence in them. It is the duty of the security services to safeguard the interests of the nation and to follow up any significant information—to whomever that information may relate. The services cannot defend themselves in public, and that reinforces the case for a parliamentary statement from the Prime Minister.
Anyone who knows the high reputation of the services will be surprised at the allegations of incompetence and bias. The House hopes that it may be reassured by the Prime Minister of his confidence in the security services. If the right hon. Member for Huyton, when he was Prime Minister, honestly held the opinion of them that has been attributed to him in The Observer article, it is surprising that he did not seek to remedy the position when he had the authority and was able to take the necessary steps. It is also surprising that he apparently waited until after he had left office and then gave his story to the Press. That is just the sort of action that the right hon. Gentleman roundly condemned in his own recently published comments to the Royal Commission on the Press.
Indeed, in his book entitled "The Governance of Britain", which was published not long ago, the right hon. Gentleman made clear in his chapter on the security services the importance that he attaches to treating with discretion all matters relating to those services. The right hon. Gentleman reinforced that view


with a quotation from Harold Macmillan to the effect that public discussion of the security services risked destroying the services, which are of the utmost value to the country.
When he made these accusations against the security services, the right hon. Gentleman must have been fully aware of the serious implications for the functioning of the services and public confidence in them. It is also clear that once the right hon. Gentleman ceased to be Prime Minister, his duty, when he had allegations to make, was not to air them through the Press but to speak to the present Prime Minister. I should like the Minister to tell us whether the right hon. Gentleman did that. Did he cover the ground that is contained in the report in The Observer, and what was the result?
It is imperative that the Prime Minister should come to the House later today to deal with this matter, because he is responsible for all the security services and all of them are involved in these accusations. I believe in the importance of national security, but I also believe that Parliament and the people have the right to know whether it is in safe hands.

5.20 a.m.

Mr. Stephen Hastings (Mid-Bedfordshire): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Blaker) on raising this matter. It will not be lost on the Minister that five of my hon. Friend and myself think that the subject is of sufficient importance for us to be here at 5.30 a.m.—and small wonder when we have heard what my hon. Friend has told us.
We have all read the two articles in The Observer and the story in today's Daily Express. My impression of the articles in The Observer was that they were an attempt, conscious or otherwise, to confuse public reaction and to discredit the security services. No other interpretation can be put upon them. They are grossly misleading about the Frolik defection revelations. If the Minister has not already read it, I commend Frolik's book to her. It is interesting, but it has certain omissions. I understand that a version of the book is soon to be published in the United States and that the information that it contains will be fuller than

was allowed by our libel laws. Could it be—and it would be consistent with the known tactics of the KGB—that it was worried about the publication of such a work and that an attempt to counter its effect by confusing the issue in the manner that I have described was behind the articles in The Observer?
It is strange that the right hon. Member for Huyton (Sir H. Wilson) is not here to listen to the debate and to reply to it. I hope that he will explain to us why he is not here. His connection with this affair has been positively paranoic. In The Observer articles, the right hon. Gentleman referred to the security service in terms such as:
a faction of MI5 was putting it about that there was a Communist cell in the Cabinet
and,
'They (MI5) would naturally be brought up to believe that socialist leaders were another form of Communism'.
If the right hon. Gentleman does not deny that, he should see a psychiatrist. It is the most extraordinary attitude for anyone with the slightest familiarity with the administration in Whitehall, let alone an ex-Prime Minister. The only time that I had anything to do with the security service was during the Cyprus troubles, and I know that they are professionals, trained to examine information many times before passing it on to Ministers. Yet this is the way that they are referred to by the last Prime Minister of this country.
It is the most extraordinary picture. Threatened, he conceives, by the security service, the right hon. Gentleman does not come to the House and make a public statement, but rather complains about it over a period of 14 months to two young journalists, Mr. Penrose and Mr. Courtiour. All this began in May last year. It beggars description as a course of action by a responsible person, let alone an ex-Prime Minister.
Finally, the articles in The Observer conclude that surveillance by the security service of the enemies of this country should
enjoy the support of informed public opinion.
What a marvellous picture that conjures up. Presumably when it thinks it necessary to keep an eye on the latest identified agent of the KGB it has to telephone


The Observer to ask whether informed public opinion is behind the service. It is a childish series of articles in many ways. If it did not have such grave implications for the security services and if it were not for its connection with an ex-Prime Minister, it would be a matter for laughter.
Unfortunately, for the reasons that my hon. Friend has already so capably adduced, it has those implications and it cannot be left there. At the very least we have an ex-Prime Minister and a Member of the House of Commons who is lending his authority to these extraordinary assertions and accusations. We have, it seems, a campaign already orchestrated in such publications as that organ of Soviet friendship "Time Out", referred to in one of The Observer articles.
There was a parallel campaign with which I expect the hon. Lady is familiar, as certainly are my hon. Friends, in the United States that lasted for months during the Watergate revelations, which was designed to denigrate and weaken the effectiveness of the CIA and to destroy public confidence in its work. It may have done untold damage to the free world. I am sure that the KGB was behind it. Now we have the beginning of the same sort of thing in this country. That is something of which the hon. Lady must take account. The Home Secretary should be here to give us his view.
I should be grateful if the hon. Lady would address herself to certain questions. They will continue to be asked if she does not give satisfactory answers. First, is it possible that these articles could have appeared without the knowledge of the right hon. Member for Huyton? It is conceivable that it is some fabrication, or that it represents a twisting of the words that the right hon. Gentleman used at some stage. Can anyone seriously believe that? Secondly, why has he chosen this moment and method? If the answer to the first question be that he must have known about it, why has he chosen this moment and method to aid and abet such extraordinary revelations in the newspapers? Why has he not come to the House or gone to the Prime Minister to explain the background to the whole matter?
Thirdly, what lies behind Mr. Chapman Pincher's assertions in this morning's Daily Express that, first, the right hon. Gentleman was under suspicion by the security services; secondly, that the matter might be connected with the Gunther Guillaume case in Germany, with which I am sure the hon. Lady is familiar; and, thirdly, that the whole series of articles is part of a campaign to damage the security service, in which by implication the right hon. Gentleman is involved?
These matters will not go away. Let me finally make that clear to the hon. Lady. We are here at half-past five in the morning, and I suppose that it might be hoped by the Government that in a week's time when the House has gone into recess it will all be forgotten. It will not. If we do not receive a satisfactory answer between now and when the House reassembles, it will still not be forgotten. It would be much wiser for the Prime Minister to accept my hon. Friend's advice and to make a statement in the House this day about a matter that is as grave as anything that I can remember emerging in public life from a figure such as the right hon. Member for Huyton in all the time that I have been in this place. Let the Government take account of it and let them satisfy the House forthwith.

5.30 a.m.

Mr. Cyril D. Townsend: I need not detain the House for long this morning because my hon. Friends the Members for Blackpool, South (Mr. Blaker) and for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Hastings) have covered the ground very adequately.
I start by saying how well qualified is my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, South to inform the House of these matters. After all, he has had experience at both the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign Office. I thought that he put his case today in a responsible and impressive manner.
I support my hon. Friend's basic theme. I regret the fact that at present this is a one-sided debate. Surely Labour Members have some interest in national security. Indeed, from time to time the Liberals might show a little interest in such matters. Why should it


be that it is only Conservative Members who seem to find this matter of such serious import this morning? I should be delighted to give way to the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott) if he wishes to take part in the debate.

Mr. John Prescott: I would lose my chance on the next debate.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine): Observations from a sedentary position are deprecated.

Mr. Townsend: It appears that the recent spate of Press articles has been sparked off by a series of meetings between the right hon. Member for Huyton (Sir H. Wilson) and two freelance reporters, and until such time as that right hon. Gentleman denies that he gave those interviews, I feel that the House has no alternative but to take the matter seriously. In my view, it was the height of irresponsibility for a former Prime Minister to discuss our counter-intelligence services with two journalists so soon after giving up office. As we all know, from time to time former very junior Service men are taken to court for giving away what they learned during their time in the Services. Yet here we have a former Prime Minister apparently spilling the beans, and, of course, he would have far more vital information to disclose.
The right hon. Gentleman was, after all, passing on official secrets with a view to obtaining public discussion on a number of highly sensitive matters. One is bound to ask what he thought he would achieve. What possible revelations prompted his actions? Did he want to go on record before further aspects of life at No. 10 were made public? Did he know that the fascinating story in the Daily Express today was about to break? Is there something else about which the House has yet to learn?
One is bound to ask what actions the right hon. Gentleman took as Prime Minister, with ultimate responsibility for our national security, to put right what he considered to be wrong with our security services. What warnings did he pass on to his successors in 1970 and in 1976 about the state of those services? Surely

it would be monstrous if as Prime Minister the right hon. Gentleman did not take every possible step open to him to make sure that these services were staffed by people of the highest integrity and intellectual calibre and that the services were working with the utmost discretion and efficiency.
Leaving aside the more lurid and bizarre aspects of the Press stories and the ridiculous mistakes in identities, and the right hon. Gentleman's well-known persecution complex, we are left with a number of serious allegations against our counter-intelligence services by the man who was responsible for them. It would be quite wrong if the Government and Parliament attempted to walk away from them because it is embarrassing for the Government and because Parliament is going on holiday.
After all, when one analyses the matter, one realises that we are talking about the defence of Britain. That is the responsibility of the security services. In this country we still have—although the present Government have run down the Services—a number of extremely important things to conceal from our potential enemies. We have a lot of vital NATO equipment, and there are special relationships with the United States, a knowledge of which would be of great use to a hostile Power. It is ultimately the job of the security services to keep our secrets secret. It is no exaggeration to say that at the end of the day men's lives could be at stake if our security services prove to be deficient.
Therefore, I strongly support the demands that we have just heard for an urgent statement to be made to the House this morning, preferably by the Prime Minister. Our intelligence and security services have a vital role to play and it is essential that they enjoy the respect of the public they serve. Their life is often portrayed as glamorous. I do not think that is true at all. It is a tedious job of collecting and collating a lot of minor stories which may add up to something of importance.
The allegations suggest that not only is our intelligence service staffed by fools at a junior level but that those who report direct to No. 10 are equally foolish. One would suspect that both propositions are without foundation and that Britain still has one of the finest, if


not the finest, intelligence service in the world.
I would add that I believe that the Prime Minister should tell the House that he will appoint a top level inquiry to investigate the allegations put forward by the former Prime Minister the right hon. Member for Huyton. I believe that we owe such an inquiry to those whose task it is to protect us from those powers which wish to destroy our liberties and our way of life.

5.36 a.m.

Mr. Carol Mather (Esher): We are all aware, even at this time of the morning and even with so few hon. Members present, of the very grave matter that we are now discussing. The gravity of it has been brought out adequately by my hon. Friends the Members for Blackpool, South (Mr. Blaker), Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Hastings) and Bexleyheath (Mr. Townsend).
It has been pointed out that the hon. Lady is in an unfortunate position. It should not be her who answers this debate. The only person who can really answer such a debate is the Prime Minister himself. He is the person responsible for the security service, and no one else.
Various questions arise out of the information which we have so far in the three articles that have been published, the last of which is not yet even known to the public at large. That is the article in the Daily Express this morning. I do not expect the hon. Lady to answer the questions that I am about to ask, but I would expect the Prime Minister to answer them as soon as he can.
How did the BBC hire two freelance journalists for private counter-espionage purposes? How was it that the Director-General of the BBC gave his authority for those activities?
Secondly, is it true that the initial approach was made by the right hon. Member for Huyton (Sir H. Wilson) himself and not by the two journalists concerned? Thirdly, how is it that a former Prime Minister who had left that office only a few months previously is alleged to have broken the Official Secrets Act and to have attacked the very service for which he was solely responsible?
As we all know, any matter concerning the secret service, which is what we are now discussing, is Top Secret. If one looks at the Franks Report for a definition of Top Secret, the criteria that one is given include
Any disclosure which would do exceptionally grave damage to the nation".
The next question I should like to ask is, how was it that these two articles came to be published by The Observer? Did the right hon. Member for Huyton give his approval for publication? If he did not give his approval, why does he remain silent? Why did not the D Notice procedure operate to safeguard the security service from attacks to discredit it? Did the present Prime Minister know what was going on? If not, when did he become aware of it? We expect to be told the extent of his knowledge on this matter.
Is it true that bugs were planted in No. 10, as we read in Mr. Chapman Pincher's article in this morning's Daily Express? What were the reasons for their being planted, if the allegation is true? What is the truth in the suggestion by Mr. Chapman Pincher that the security service was anxious about "certain Ministers with whom the former Prime Minister had to deal"? Why has none of the stories been denied?
The upshot is that accusations of gross incompetence have been made against the Security Service. These allegations are alleged to have been made by the former Prime Minister. Counter-stories, supposed to have emanated from MI5, suggest that the former Prime Minister was involved with Communists and that there was a Communist cell in the Cabinet.
This is gravely damaging to the security service. One can imagine what effect these public attacks will have on the morale of those who work in it. The reports are gravely damaging to the reputation of the former Prime Minister, to national security, to international relations, to the Government of this country and to us all.
Why has no one spoken up? Why has the Prime Minister not leapt to the defence of the security service? Why has the Attorney-General not come to the House to say whether the Official Secrets Act has been breached? Why does the Home Secretary remain silent on matters


of internal security? Why is Parliament allowed to go into recess without a statement?
These rumours are allowed to circulate, reputations are allowed to be smeared and tarnished, and our national security services are discredited. We must have the truth before the recess. We require a statement by the Prime Minister today.

5.43 a.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Dr. Shirley Summerskill): The hon. Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Blaker) and others have made a number of observations about the allegations against the security service and about the source of those allegations.
The allegations are said to be derived from notes made by two journalists of meetings in May last year with my right hon. Friend the Member for Huyton (Sir H. Wilson) and with his political secretary. That was, of course, after my right hon. Friend ceased to hold ministerial office. Clearly, I am not in a position to tell the House whether and in which circumstances the alleged meetings took place, and whether the published accounts are a true record of what was said. Only my right hon. Friend the Member for Huyton could answer the hon. Gentleman's question on those aspects of the matter.
I am inhibited from commenting on the allegations in any detail by the longstanding and well-established convention that these matters are not discussed across the Floor of the House. It may be argued that the publication of these allegations justifies a breach of that convention on this occasion. I cannot agree. There are good reasons for the convention, arising out of the nature of the duties of the service. The force of those reasons is not diminished by what has occurred, and the fact that a newspaper has published material of this kind does not justify a departure from the traditional practice of the House in these matters. I shall only say, therefore, in very general terms that the House should not assume from what I have said that the Government accept that the journalists' allegations are well founded.
The allegations all relate to periods many years ago—in one case more than a quarter of a century ago. Our concern here should be with the state of the security service today.
Whatever may be the inhibitions upon our discussion of these matters in this House, hon. Members are entirely justified in seeking to be assured that Ministers are satisfied of the competence, integrity and loyalty of the service. That, more than the accuracy or otherwise of allegations of what happened or did not happen on particular occasions in the past, is the serious point in all this. The House is entitled to look to the Ministers to whom the security service is answerable and accountable—that is, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and in the last resort my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister—to accept responsibility that all is well in this respect.
As to that, the tradition in this country is that the service is accountable to Ministers. Parliament accepts that the accountability must be to Ministers rather than to Parliament, and trusts Ministers to discharge that responsibility faithfully. There are arrangements—reviewed and further improved only last year—for giving effect to this accountability to Ministers. I am authorised to assure the House that on the basis of those arrangements my right hon. Friends are confident that the service concerned is carrying out its duties within the limits laid down in the directive to the Director-General issued by the then Home Secretary in September 1952 and which remains in force.
My right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary will continue to undertake a close oversight of the work of the security service and will take any further action that may be required, from time to time, to assure themselves that it is staffed by persons who are competent professionally and who can be relied upon to serve the national interest with the same integrity and impartiality as we expect from all the public services, and who have constantly in their minds the importance of individual liberties. They have no reason to doubt that this is the case.

Mr. Blaker: I do not wish the Minister to finish her speech without dealing precisely with this question: has my request made yesterday—that the Prime


Minister should come to the House today and make a statement on this matter—been transmitted to the Prime Minister, and does he intend to come?

Dr. Summerskill: I can assure the House and hon. Members who have spoken that everything they have said in this debate will be made clear to my right hon. Friends the Home Secretary and Prime Minister as soon as possible after the debate is over, but I do not wish to add to what I said.

Mr. Hastings: Before the hon. Lady sits down—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I was under the impression that the hon. Lady had sat down.

Orders of the Day — PRISONS

5.49 a.m.

Mr. John Prescott: I wish to use this opportunity to direct the attention of the House to the growing problems of high-security dispersal prisons. My constituency houses the Hull prison, one of seven high-security prisons and the one that has suffered the worst riot this century. The proper lessons must be drawn urgently from the Hull riot. It is vital that urgent steps be taken to prevent any such riots in other high-security prisons, for I have reason to believe that others may well happen.
I welcome the recent publication of Inspector Fowler's report on the Hull riot. I believe that it is the first time the Home Office has published a report on a major prison riot, and to that extent is a major step forward in public discussion on our prisons. In my evidence to the inquiry I requested that the Home Office consider opening up a public debate on these matters and said that one of the first steps towards that would be publication of the report. After considerable criticism of the non-publication of the Gale Report into the Parkhurst riot, this is a valuable precedent. I hope that it will be followed. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary on making the report public.
However, I have a serious difference with the inquiry over its conclusions. If they are accepted there is a great danger that they will contribute to further tensions and further incidents in our prisons.
The dispersal prisons are special prisons dealing with high-security prisoners. These prisons pose special and specific problems requiring specific and special policies. I want to differentiate between such prisons and what are known as the local prisons. In my evidence to the inquiry I spoke of the need for a different policy for the high-security prisons, for a number of obvious reasons that I spelt out in that report. Such prisons house prisoners requiring the highest security.
All the evidence is that external security has been achieved quite successfully. There have been no escapes from Hull. There have been one or two from other high-security prisons, but in the main the security of high-security prisons has been increased.
I am largely concerned about the nature and type of the regime inside the prisons. We have so far failed to implement the kind of regime that would prevent the sort of riot that occurred at Hull and reduce tensions and incidents, which unfortunately are increasing to dangerous levels. Therefore, I ask the Department to reconsider its expenditure priorities in this area. It is clear that the public spending cuts have had considerable effects on prison expenditure.
The four-day riot at Hull was a landmark, making necessary a rethinking of prison policy, particularly for high-security prisons. This morning I am concerned solely with high-security dispersal prisons.
Hull was a unique prison, because it was subjected to vastly different types of régime at different times, and therefore one can compare them. In my evidence to the inquiry I was able to identify those régimes almost by reference to the Governor of the time. When I visited the prison as the Member of Parliament and talked to people associated with it, I was aware of a liberal régime under one Governor and of a stricter period under another Governor before the riot. To my mind that stricter régime contributed to the increasing tension and the eventual riot.
As the Member of Parliament I am naturally deeply concerned about my constituents who, unlike the situation at a number of other high security prisons, live very close to Hull Prison. That is one of the factors the Home Office must


take into account if it is to consider dispersing high-security prisons in the future. As Fowler points out, it is not a satisfactory prison, situated, as it is, so close to a densely-populated area.
I am as much concerned with the level of tension in the prison. That tension is felt by my constituents outside. As soon as an incident occurs, the security forces are naturally brought in and the people living nearby immediately feel involved. Even false alarms tend to cause tension. As the Member for the area since 1970, I have witnessed a considerable increase in that tension.
This has led me to express my concern to the Home Office in a series of interviews and letters. I wrote to the Minister of the day, my hon. Friend the Member for York (Mr. Lyon), expressing my concern and referring to specific incidents, including one in which a man who was surrendering from a rooftop demonstration was savaged by a dog. That incident was not denied by the Home Office at the time and was repeated during the Hull riot.
I was assured by the Minister on 30th August 1974
that it was an isolated incident and I can assure you that there are no grounds for concern about morale in the prison generally".
He added that
it should not be taken to indicate that internal control is in jeopardy".
Events did not bear out that judgment. They bore out my judgment and prediction that there would be a much more serious incident in the prison. I give a similar warning tonight. We shall witness yet another very serious incident, and I shall give my reasons for saying that.
I prepared my report on the Hull riot because the prisoners felt that the evidence they had given to the official inquiry would not be treated objectively. The inspector has described the evidence I collected as "carefully prepared", for which I am grateful—and for his report. I tried to weigh the balance of arguments put to me in interviews with the prisoners and with those connected with the prison. I reached a different conclusion from that of Inspector Fowler.
My analysis, together with the reasons given by prisoners in letters to me of why the riot took place, coincide with

the analysis by Inspector Fowler. He and I agree on the causes and about errors that were made. First, there was no single cause for the riot. It began when a passive demonstration deteriorated through bad judgment by the prison administration, and it was avoidable Second, Hull Prison has a greater pro portion of high-security prisoners than other prisons which affect the chemistry within the prison itself. Third, overtime cuts had an aggravating effect on prison officers, and that certainly inflamed the atmosphere inside the prison. Cut-backs in recreation facilities certainly aggravated the situation and the governor—in this case it was Governor Kearns—was far too strict in his interpretation of the rules and used inexperienced prison staff.
Inspector Fowler concluded that the liberal circumstances in Hull Prison provided greater opportunities for riotous behaviour. This is entirely contrary to my evidence. I took the view that it was a stricter regime. It is contrary to what the prisoners said. It is contrary to what people who had worked in the prison had said. It is certainly contrary to a lot of the evidence that Fowler includes in his report.
I do not believe that the Fowler inquiry satisfactorily investigated questions of brutality and assault. I believe that these matters will be pursued in court, and other matters outside Inspector Fowler's remit are being investigated by the police. I am sure that we have not heard the last of these matters.
Inspector Fowler rejected the view that a hard institutional toughness existed at Hull Prison. Consequently, he made recommendations which at best tinkered with the problem and at worst may encourage Governments and others to allow to continue the present stricter system in our high-security gaols, with the possibility of further riots and incidents.
The central thesis of my evidence was a comparison between the liberal governorship of Governor Perrie in 1968–70 with the harsh regime under Governor Kearns from 1973 to 1976 just prior to the riot. The prisoners' view was that the attitude inside the prison hardened considerably from what they identify as the liberal period under Governor Perrie.
The test facing anyone listening to evidence from prisoners is to make an objective judgment. I accordingly obtained


the Home Office statistics for those periods to see whether it was possible to make an objective comparison.
From 1968 to 1970—the liberal period —there were on average 11 solitary confinements of prisoners per year. That was a reduction achieved by Governor Perrie from 57 a year for the previous three years. It increased to an average of 106 per year under Governor Kearns. That was an increase of 860 per cent. over the number that occurred under Governor Perrie and an increase of 125 per cent. over the number that occurred in the three years previous to Governor Kearns.
Therefore this question must be answered: if Hull Prison were responsible for 8 per cent. of the prison population, why was it responsible for 40 per cent. of the solitary confinements that were awarded in internal high-security prisons? It may be argued that the prisoners were more troublesome there, but the statistics of incidents in all security prisons show that Hull was middle-to-bottom of the league in all disciplinary matters. Although it was not the prison with the greatest number of troublesome prisoners, it made the highest use of solitary confinement.
Fowler did not address himself to that central fact. I would have thought that it was necessary to reconcile those important statistics if one wished to distinguish between a liberal and a strict régime, as I attempted to do in tables and graphs in my evidence. Inspector Fowler refers to it in paragraph 267 of his report, where he says that there were indications that suggested that there was an increased use at Hull of sentencing to segregation under rule 43. The increase was from 45 a year to 110 a year. That is not just an indication. It is a positive increase reflecting a very different policy. Inspector Fowler goes on to argue that a crisis was normal at Hull. The real question for him to ask was why there were such crises at Hull, and a major failing in his conclusions is that he did not make proper use of the Home Office statistics.
It is interesting that in the Report on the work of the Prison Department for 1976, which came out only last week, the Department informs us that each of these high-security prisons has attached to it a

psychology unit which regularly collects and records
basic information on both the characteristics of the individual prisoner and the events of prison life such as sick reporting, number of offences against prison rules etc. … indications of the stability or otherwise of the regime are sought. Uusing a mathematical model known as Catastrophe Theory, psychologists are attempting to identify patterns of institutional life which might predict when an event such as a riot is likely to occur".
Did the model working in Hull give any indication of the possible riot that was to come, which everyone had been telling the Home Office was likely to occur? Were the data used in the catastrophe theory model the same kind of data as I have used in my own report? If that is so, why did not Inspector Fowler refer to this work which was going on, or even talk to the unit about the data? Presumably, such units would have been able to identify different types of of régime in the data fashion I have suggested, which is the very essence of the Catastrophe Theory model referred to in this year's report on prisons.
Inspector Fowler pointed out that one of the matters which really upset the prisoners once they broke into the accommodation and were holding out there was to find these reports on themselves. Inspector Fowler says that it triggered off the destruction which occurred from then on. Were these the reports of such a psychology unit, and were they the reports that the prisoners got hold of?
I can give an indication of the incensed feelings about that matter. I have a number of letters which have been smuggled out and sent to me from prisoners inside Hull and from other prisons to which they were sent. They refer to these files. Here is one letter:
These files were terrifying reading: the most elemental and crude 'psychological assessment' of prisoners by staff. Every other word was 'psychopath', and the utter dehumanised portraits of ourselves, plus many summaries of interviews between staff and prisoners which had simply not taken place. I may say here, as I have elsewhere, that these files were liberated very soon after the riot started, and changed the whole mood of the prisoners, for suddenly all our suspicions of the view of us by the regime were confirmed. They spoke of us as animals rather than human beings. They undoubtedly stoked the fires of rebellion.
Inspector Fowler confirms that attitude, and it is embodies in that letter, which


came out before the Fowler Report. In these circumstances, it is important that there be an explanation of why these reports were there, and what is the role of such units.
Nevertheless, despite all this evidence, Inspector Fowler draws the conclusion —I think that this is the most dangerous part of it—in paragraph 10(d) of this report:
The paradox, of course, is that in a prison where tolerance had been shown the opportunity for riotous behaviour was that much greater.
If the suggestion was, as implied in the report itself, that the regime in Hull was tolerant and, because it was tolerant, it led to the Hull riots, I entirely reject it. My evidence is clearly on record for everyone to see, as it was publicly available and still is. But the evidence in the Fowler report itself contradicts the central conclusion. For example, Inspector Fowler points out that Governor Kearns contributed to the instability by his rigid interpretation of rules; that some of the board of visitors felt that he had made insufficient concessions to prisoners in treatment terms; that the prison administration dogs—this is recorded in his report—savaged prisoners after they had come down from the roof after surrendering; that there were insufficiently experienced arrogant, young prison officers, not ideal for Hull; and that property of prisoners in Wing B who had taken no part in the riot was smashed up despite the orders of the governor. I wonder whether the Minister can confirm that the Home Office will be paying damages in respect of prisoners' personal property which was smashed by the prison officers—the personal property of people, that is, who were not involved in the riot in any way. Perhaps my hon. Friend will comment on that.
Fowler also points out that the situation moved from a passive demonstration to a riot because of the failure of judgment in not allowing what was normal procedure in the prison to take place.
All these and other factors dispute the contention that a liberal regime existed in the prison. In no way was it like that which people interpreted to be a liberal régime under Governor Perrie— régime of which I was aware from visits

to the prison. Many people associated with Hull Prison draw a distinction between them.
Fowler's remarks about the grievance procedure inside Hull are totally at variance with the facts, and certainly at variance with the views of people such as the members of the Jellicoe Committee who looked at the prisoners' role in grievance procedures. Another interesting insight is that Fowler uses the word "subversive" in relation to prisoners who are said to undermine order, and yet when prison officers smashed prisoners' equipment this was described by him as "excess zeal".
A recent article in The Sunday Times states that Home Office psychologists have been doing surveys of the attitudes of prison authorities as to what is considered to be subversive. They conclude, having asked prison officers to point out who the subversives were, that it is a term used by them to justify the fact that they treat these men differently from others. There was no common factor between these people whom different officers had described as subversive and as undermining prison authority.
To a certain extent, therefore, I find that it is not surprising that Inspector Fowler, in his report, does not deal—certainly in view of his conclusion—with the matters that I raised in my report. These are the kinds of thing that one associates with liberal régimes. One could consider the introduction of a separate prison ombudsman. The education and recreation cuts should be reversed. Fowler could have taken such matters into account and made recommendations. He could also have considered the problem of the increasing numbers of psychiatric cases being kept in prison. There should be a review of industrial work, particularly when we find wage costs equivalent to 4 per cent. and the administration costs of the unit about 54 per cent., with a loss of £2,500,000.
It was no surprise to me that a number of people have felt that the Fowler inquiry has reached a conclusion that is at odds with its own interpretations. For the reasons that I have indicated, it is a


report which has failed to reach the objective set for it. Indeed, it has been described, with some justification, as eyewash.
If we are to look at these very crucial issues, we have to draw the proper conclusions from this lesson at Hull. I support the suggestion that there should be an independent public inquiry. An editorial in The Times said that the only proper course would be for the Government to set up an independent public inquiry. I fully support that suggestion.
I am concerned that the situation could be worsened by the Fowler inquiry encouraging people to believe that the present position can be maintained simply by tightening up the procedures in one way and another. I think that is the worst road to follow, and it is essential that the Minister should give consideration —and especially the Home Secretary—to hold an independent public inquiry.
The review of the Department's Prison Report 1976 last week showed an alarming trend of increasing figures of assaults and disciplinary offences in prisons. In some cases they have increased by as much as 80 per cent. in all categories of offences inside prisons. Some prisons are showing greater strains than others. It is my view—and, apparently, the Department's—in looking at the Catastrophe Theory, that when we compare the figures of the different prisons we can begin to see a similar pattern to that at Hull.
I think I could predict that the next incident will be at the Albany Prison in the Isle of Wight. All the symptoms that I noticed at Hull Prison are present at Albany. I have received evidence smuggled out only this week from Albany Prison, talking of the lack of availability of the Governor, and of cell fires which have recently taken place. It speaks of men spending 23 hours in a cell, of aggravation with prison officers, of overtime cuts, and of people seeking to go into solitary confinement in order to get away from the tension. It is not difficult to predict that the same kinds of problem are present at Albany as were present at Hull Prison. A report about Albany by Amnesty International describes an incident in September 1976 and expresses concern about developments there which, it feels, are a denial of minimum requirements for prisoners.
All these matters would seem to suggest that Albany is developing all the characteristics associated with the Catastrophe Theory that is talked about.
The Albany figures show an increase in all categories of offences, whereas it is mixed in some of the other prisons. Parkhurst, which is considered to be quite a tough gaol, shows almost the opposite taking place. Offences per head in Albany are 5·84, but in Parkhurst the figure is 0·61 according to the Department's figures. It is nine times as high in Albany as in Parkhurst. Such figures began to develop in Hull. Therefore, all the signs that we noticed at Hull are becoming evident at Albany, and it is possible to indicate them in Gartree.
I ask the Minister for an assurance that the Catastrophe Theory will not be used as between one prison and another to test its limits by increasing offences. That is a matter of some concern. I hope that my hon. Friend will be able to give me an assurance on that matter. Clearly we are beginning to see the development of these problems in prisons. Therefore, something must be done immediately.
Dispersal prisons do not have the same population problems as local prisons, but there is a strong argument for reducing prison populations. The editorial in The Times, six weeks before the Hull riot, predicted that we must do something before the prison population got above 42,000. It would be unfortunate if the Government were forced into drastic action by what was referred to by Mr. Roy Jenkins as some violent and tragic event. The previous Home Secretary felt that there would be considerable problems if we got above 42,000. According to the Department's figures, we have 42,419 prisoners inside our prisons. That means that prisoners stay in the cells longer and that there are more disciplinary incidents.
The Government have cut back expenditure on prisons. By 1979 expenditure on prisons will be only 75 per cent. at today's values. Therefore, it is urgent that the Minister should consider some kind of amnesty—that is not too farfetched in Jubilee Year—and set some kind of precedent. We should bear in mind that 21,000 male prisoners over 21 years of age are serving sentences of less than 18 months. If we could cut those


sentences by 10 per cent., we should be able at a stroke to release more than 2,000 prisoners from our prisons and bring down the population to 40,000.
I hope that the Minister will consider holding the public inquiry, for which I have called. I welcome his statement on 14th July when he said that he still believed in the concept of a dispersal policy and that he intends to maintain it.
The Minister referred to the systems advocated by Radzinowicz. I remind him that when Radzinowicz recommended the system of dispersal as opposed to the concentrated system recommended by Mountbatten, he said that
increased security need not, and must not, be obtained by a reversal of the trend towards a more liberal and constructive régime inside our long-term prisons, still less by a partial or complete return to the restricted solitary life for the prisoner for which our nineteenth century prisons were designed.
Therefore, the Radzinowicz system is associated with the liberal system in which I believe. This proved to be the most effective system in Hull, once the outer perimeter was secured.
I hope that a public inquiry will look at the minimum factors needed to maintain a liberal regime in all high-security prisons. An independent public inquiry could look at the Hull riot within the context of that remit. I hope that the Minister will consider that course of action.

6.20 a.m.

The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Brynmor John): It is appropriate that my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott) and I should be discussing this matter this morning. When the Hull riot broke out I was the Minister at the Home Office in charge, and my hon. Friend's first discussions on the problem were with me. I hope that I put facts at his disposal which helped him in some way. He has rightly concentrated our minds on the reappraisal of total policies, as did Mr. Fowler in his report when he recommended a further review of dispersal régimes.
I cannot promise another public inquiry on this matter, but I can promise that the Home Secretary will consider not only the observations of Mr. Fowler's

report, as he must do in consultation with the staff associations, but the observations that my hon. Friend has made in his printed report and in the debate that he has initiated this morning. He is right to deal mainly with the pre-riot conditions at Hull, rather than the post-riot conditions because many of these matters are still being investigated by the police, and are outside the framework of the report.
If I quarrel with my hon. Friend at all it is about his support of the dismissal of the Fowler Report. The Fowler Report does repay study. It is not an argument against a liberal regime. It is a detailed examination of the complex problem of administering a dispersal prison. It certainly points to the difficulties of the staff in operating this sort of régime. It is not illiberal to look at staff problems.
In particular the report directs our attention to the risk of staff withdrawing from contacts with prisoners in the changed circumstances of imprisonment. Many prisoners are less ready to accept the restrictions of imprisonment with resignation. The danger is that officers will see the safest course as keeping their distance and dealing entirely formally with prisoners. Encouragement for the staff to become involved with the prisoners and take an interest in them is the way in which Radzinowicz should be fulfilled. That is real security and control.
It is necessary, to preserve the life of a prison, to protect the weak from the strong and to reduce exploitation and manipulation which, as my hon. Friend knows, occurs in prisons. Our prison service has had an honourable record in trying to develop reformative regimes and to influence prisoners to a crime-free life. But no cure can be prescribed for crime and administered by carefully selected régimes. The person concerned must have motivation before he can reform.
What we can do is to institute a régime within the prison to maintain as far as possible the mental and physical health of a prisoner and to develop his social skills, particularly by recreational and educational services. That not only relieves boredom and frustration but deals in many ways with the problems that might arise on re-entry into society.
It is interesting to note that the Fowler Report referred to earlier evidence that the Americans some time ago gave up the idea of having one big prison for the most dangerous prisoners. The Home Office believes in the Radzinowicz Report and the policy of dispersal prisons.
The main difference between the Fowler Report and the view of my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, East is about the Hull riot. My hon. Friend believes that it was the strict régime that preceded the riot that led to the riot and that a more liberal régime is less likely to lead to a disturbance. The Chief Inspector did not see the régime at Hull as having been particularly strict when compared with other dispersal prisons in respect of privileges, relations between staff and inmates, and general treatment. He considered that the seeds of possible disturbances are ever present in the régime of a dispersal prison, whether it is liberal or not, and that the task of management is to anticipate problems, to try to reduce tensions and to handle incidents so that they do not escalate.
My hon. Friend touched on the subject of cellular confinement. I shall deal with that matter a little more in due course. At any rate, I am glad that my hon. Friend agreed that there was no misuse of powers or violence against prisoners before the riot. My hon. Friend made it clear that Hull Prison had no such previous history, and that has been borne out. Mr. Fowler found no evidence that the staff were encouraged in a policy of brutality. That was based on statements from prisoners as well as from the board of visitors.
My hon. Friend suggested that psychology units may have a baleful influence on the régimes at dispersal prisons. The reports that the prisoners got hold of were not reports of the Catastrophe model, or whatever it is called. Certainly reports are being undertaken by the psychology units, but I do not believe that the units have been founded for long enough or are sufficiently established to have drawn any conclusions.
My hon. Friend also asked me about whether varying régimes were being used in prisons to test the Catastrophe Theory to the full. I can say categorically that that is not so. If there are differences between prisons they are not there as a

result of using prisoners as guinea pigs to test a theory.
I have dealt with the matter of the post-riot incidents to which my hon. Friend referred. Mr. Fowler's report makes it clear that simple comparisons on a pre and post change of governor basis are misleading.
I should like to deal with the matter of cellular confinement. I am sure that my hon. Friend would agree that Hull was undoubtedly taking and containing the most difficult prisoners in the dispersal system. It was, therefore, hardly to be expected that the pattern of disciplinary awards would be the same as at other dispersal prisons. What is more important is the type of relationship that existed between the officers and the inmates.
The régime was a liberal one in which staff used considerable sympathy and tact when dealing with prisoners. The question of the severity of the régime is one that my hon. Friend has elevated to a fairly central theme. Of course there are times when régimes are tightened and the reasons are not always unjustified. But nor is a liberal régime always justified if, by liberality, one means something outside the rules. The previous governor's efforts to prevent the entry into the prison of drink, drugs and money in contravention of prison rules were no bad thing. The use and abuse of those commodities is likely to lead to greater disturbances. Régimes are changed in the light of experience, sometimes when an escape has been narrowly averted or in order to make relations between the staff and prisoners as tolerable and enlightened as possible. There is no central direction.
My hon. Friend will agree that governors must have reasonable flexibility. Only they can see how a high measure of freedom can be combined with a minimum chance of escape. My hon. Friend referred to his constituents living in the shadow of the prison. This was graphically described in the Fowler Report and in the narrative reports of the time. People in the neighbourhood of prisons demand assurances against escapes and deserve a minimising of possible danger.
My hon. Friend asked about claims for compensation. These are being entertained and, as evidence of the lack of a


spartan régime, one prisoner is claiming for possessions lost in the riot. He would hardly be able to claim for them if there had been a repressive regime before the riot.
I do not accept that the channels for grievances are inadequate or that prisoners are inhibited from using them. Thousands of petitions reach the Home Office and hundreds of letters are sent to hon. Members. Where appropriate and practicable, grievances are remedied. We have no proposals for changing the system, but we are always willing to examine grievances and I undertake to do that in the light of what my hon. Friend has said.
Just as he was right in saying that merely to categorise people as subversives means that a few people foment trouble in an otherwise trouble-free prison, so it is misleading to claim that there would not be trouble or violence but for brutality or a repressive régime. We live in a mobile age and we have to accept that people resent prison régimes, however enlightened. There are some who commit criminal offences in the pursuit of political objectives who seek to further those objectives while in prison. There are greater tendencies to violence among the whole of society, and the imprisonable population is no exception. There are certainly those who will use and manipulate the grievances of others to further their own hostility and aggression towards staff. Clearly there is a need to look at the régime in all cases, but there is equally a need to consider the individual and to try to anticipate problems.
Violence is endemic among some of the prisoners of whom my hon. Friend speaks whether or not the régime is liberal. He speaks of the Fowler Report stating that it was a passive demonstration that went wrong. I think that he will accept that further in the paragraph there is the comment that the passive demonstration was used by some prisoners as a means of escalating the violence.
My hon. Friend has made a fair point about finance. Although the prison service has suffered a good deal less than most services there has had to be a curtailment of overtime levels. Although the Chief Inspector suggested that that was one of the possible causes of the riots,

he also suggests that that aspect should not be exaggerated.
My hon. Friend broadened the issue to talk about the prison population and amnesty. Let it be clear that when we are talking about prison overcrowding we are dealing primarily with young prisoner centres and local prisons where people of the type that my hon. Friend describes are to be found. It would not help the régimes within the dispersal prisons to talk about the sort of amnesty of which my hon. Friend is speaking. My right hon. Friend has already rejected that suggestion. Nevertheless, it is right and proper—we have done this in the Criminal Law Bill —to review constantly whether we are putting too many people in prison for longer than is necessary. The Advisory Council on the Penal System has recently reported on the length of sentences and in the Criminal Law Bill we have shortened periods of imprisonment for default of fine and abolished imprisonment for simple drunkenness, which betokens inadequacy. I suggest that there is a way of reducing the prison population, but it must be a proper way and it must be properly thought out. The rather Procrustean amnesty measure that my hon. Friends has suggested is not the proper way.
My hon. Friend has spoken seriously about Albany Prison. I can assure him that whatever has happened in the past his warning will be taken seriously and that we shall investigate it. He need not think that it will be forgotten. My right hon. Friend will consider the Fowler Report. He will read my hon. Friend's report and his comments today. He will do so without any of the complacency that might be assumed, but with the knowledge that no easy answers or coordinated remedies will emerge. They will be difficult matters because the nature of dispersal prisons is difficult and at times dangerous for the staff.
I am sure that my hon. Friend will agree, as many of the prison staff are his constituents, that whatever the outcome of a few inquiries, the vast majority of prison staffs work with great tolerance, courage, pragmatism and sympathy for the prison population. They deserve the recognition not only of the House as a whole but of the whole country. They do a difficult job extremely well. I hope


that my hon. Friend will take my assurance and—

Mr. Prescott: I support what my hon. Friend says, as I am sure that the House would, too, because hon. Members often say that prison officers have a difficult job. However, as Fowler points out, and the prisoners confirm, it is the older type of prison officer for whom there is considerable respect. Towards the younger type, which Fowler recommends should not be in this type of prison, the feeling may be less than friendly.

Mr. John: I understand the difficulties of placement, and I understand the nature of dispersal prisons. The hardest thing to get in any occupation is experience. Youth betokens mistakes, whether they are in handling people or in abstract questions. We need people who are flexible and who have sympathy and imagination, and who can combine a degree of tolerance with firmness.
I believe that the prison staff of this country do an excellent job on behalf of our society.

Orders of the Day — ROAD PROGRAMME

6.40 a.m.

Mr. John MacGregor: I must apologise to the Minister for, as it turns out, having kept him up all night, although I did not realise that that would be so when I put down my motion, but he has the consolation that I have had to share his all-night vigil. Perhaps we can both look forward to the holiday to which he referred in an earlier debate.
I am grateful for this opportunity of raising some questions in relation in particular to road programmes. I have been very much concerned for the past three years in my constituency, since I arrived in the House as a Member, with the road and other transport problems in my rural area. The recent transport White Paper has some important implications for county areas, which we have not yet had proper opportunity to explore in the House. It seemed to me that this would be a convenient opportunity to probe a little further one or two aspects of the White Paper before the House rises for the recess, so that we can get some clearer indication of what is in the Minister's mind. I hope to be discussing all these aspects further during the recess

with the relevant people in my county concerned with transport.
I shall be following in a number of respects the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (Mr. Newton), who initiated an earlier debate. Perhaps I may first take up one of the comments that he made about Essex which applies very much in Norfolk, too. That is that there is considerable anger and frustration about the fact that in the past three years the present Government have constantly switched a large part of the rate support grant away from the county areas to the metropolitan areas, at a time when the county areas—my hon. Friend's and mine; and my county area is now one of the fastest-growing areas in the country—are taking a good deal of the population from the metropolitan areas.
I recognise that the Minister is not responsible for the rate support grant, although I wanted to put on record the fact that this is very much one of the problems which my county council, as the roads authority for the area, has to face—that it has limited resources as a result of this switch by central Government.
The Minister has already referred to the transport supplementary grant and he made some favourable noises about its effects upon Essex. Will he comment on the implications of the TSG, in his new thinking, for Norfolk?
I am only too well aware that we are considering problems of public expenditure in transport at a time of considerable restraint on public expenditure as a whole—very necessary, in my view, because of the overall economic climate and the economic priorities in front of us. I do not wish to be one of those who are constantly arguing for a much larger total of public expenditure, so in my remarks I should like to concentrate on some of the priorities and to probe at directions in which those priorities are going, rather than to suggest that there should be more money spent overall on transport.
I shall begin with one or two general comments on the White Paper. I should then like to raise four specific questions with the Minister. I believe that in a number of respects, at least, this is a welcome White Paper, because it is practical and realistic and to some extent will


help the county areas. For example, I welcome the decision to introduce more flexible licensing laws. I would say on that subject only that, as the Minister knows, there was a proposal by the previous Conservative Government for a Bill to introduce some type of flexibility, and I wish that we had not had the three-year delay.
One of the less favourable aspects of the White Paper that concerns me very much is whether the Government are wise in making this switch in priorities—this is a point that was also made strongly by my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree, who I see in the Chamber—away from the road programme to put greater emphasis on revenue subsidies in public transport, both bus and rail. My hon. Friend the Member for Braintree quoted the figure in paragraph 246 of the White Paper on Transport Policy which showed that the level of expenditure on the construction of new roads by central and local government had dropped from £1,000 million in 1971–72 to £630 million in 1977–78. At the same time, from another table in the White Paper, we see that the current subsidies to buses and rail have risen from £10 million in 1971–72 to a projected £185 million in the years ahead. The support for the passenger side of British Rail, for example, has risen in the same period from £135 million to £295 million now projected.
This is a considerable switch, and I share my hon. Friend's anxieties that this may not be the most effective way of spending that additional amount of public expenditure. I feel that for two reasons. First, it may not accord with the general wishes of the majority of the population who on the whole now prefer, and I believe always will prefer, car transport. Inevitably, with the run down in the road programme, it will be those who use their cars who will be affected. In addition, the community will be affected environmentally because of the large volume of traffic which the roads will be incapable of dealing with adequately.
We should bear in mind that the people who will benefit from the increase in public transport subsidies are by and large small in number, leaving aside the commuter element. But when we realise

that in the rural areas people will choose to use their cars, I wonder whether this switch in priorities is what the public as a whole would have chosen. I also wonder whether we are getting value for money for the public as a whole.
My second worry is that this is yet another example of current Government thinking on public expenditure where all the cut-backs are being made on capital expenditure while they are preserving, and in some cases increasing, current expenditure. I believe that on a five-to-ten year view that simply cannot be right. It is not appropriate to go into all the problems that this raises for the construction industry at present. But that is something that we should bear in mind as well. There is a big employment implication here.
That is the only general point that I wish t make on the White Paper. I am disturbed at the run down, and the continued planned run down, in the amount of money that is being devoted to the road programme.
I turn to my four points. They are points which I would ask the Minister to clarify a little more precisely with regard to what we can expect in the next year or two. I shall illustrate each point with Norfolk examples because that is the easiest way of showing what I have in mind. However, there are implications for other counties.
First, I should like to quote from paragraph 248 of the White Paper. That is a paragraph which, if properly carried out, I very much welcome. It is the paragraph where the Government are indicating that there will be a switch in the road programme away from the national network—the motorways and the major trunk routes—to rather more specific policies. To bring the point out I quote from paragraph 248 which states that:
the Government intends to adopt a more flexible approach…This is a matter not of building to lines superimposed on maps and to rigid standards but of deciding on the right standard for each section of route and producing proposals for the most economical solution, taking into account environmental considerations. It would not be using the money available to best advantage to plan and construct roads to a uniform standard throughout when the traffic volume on different stretches is not uniform—especially when


building to a lower standard on some stretches would save money which could then be spent on more by-passes to relieve hard-pressed towns and villages.
The next paragraph adds:
There will be a more selective approach. This policy will mean improving roads in phases, dealing with the worst stretches first.
This switch is right in current circumstances when money is limited and when we have already had a substantial building programme on the motorway networks. I welcome it.
Can the Minister clarify how this will work out in practice on the stretch of the A 11 from Newmarket to Cringleford? The 1970 White Paper "Roads for the Future" stated that the A 11 would be selected
for comprehensive improvement to motorway or dual carriageway standards".
That has been the general objective since then but this route has constantly slipped back in the road programme.
In August last year it was indicated in a Written Reply that the improvement would be put back two or three years and that work would not start until 1984. One of the reasons for that is that the traffic volume for the whole route does not compare with many others in the country. The scheme has always slipped back because on large chunks of the road the traffic is not dense.
Between Attleborough and Cringleford, however—the last section of the road from London—the traffic volume is heavy and there are considerable problems. I travel the road every weekend and it is not until I reach Thetford that I experience any problems in getting out of London and moving through Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Suffolk. It is an excellent road until one reaches Thetford, but it is then single carriageway, often twisting, and very many heavy lorries use it. That stretch is the slowest. It takes twice as long to travel that as it does any comparable stretch. That does not show up in the statistics, but it is the practical experience of drivers.
Does the new emphasis in the White Paper mean that it will now be possible to deal with the road in sections? In an ideal world we would all like to see a dual carriageway for the whole length of the road but that may not be a practical proposition for many years. I believe

that most people using the road would therefore welcome a scheme to start improving some sections at least of the road either by adding another carriageway or by making them dual carriageway, instead of waiting years for the whole length to be done. That would help to relieve the worst congestion. It would give car drivers the opportunity to pass heavy lorries that they might have followed for 15 miles. That would be the best solution. It would make it possible to start planning earlier for the removal of the worst bottlenecks. It is in line with the White Paper.
In that context, I remind the Minister that Norfolk has been taking a disproportionate share of postponements in the road programme. I suspect that the whole traffic flow does not add up to the density experienced in other parts but that if it had been broken down it would, and that perhaps some of these postponements would not have taken place.
The second point I wish to make concerns bypasses. I echo what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree because I have the same kind of difficulty in many of the historic towns and villages in my constituency. Paragraph 25 of the White Paper says,
Apart from industrial and regional needs the other main priority will be schemes of environmental importance.
I welcome that statement.
This is another reason why I am concerned about a cut-back in the road programme. An enormous number of environmental schemes throughout the country are not only necessary but would bring comfort and relief to many more people than those who use the roads. Furthermore, those schemes would raise the quality of life for a large number of residents. I suspect that many people would like to see more resources spent on those aspects than, say, on subsidising bus fares and similar matters. Those environmental matters cause real grievances and are with people every day, whereas the heavy cost of bus fares may affect a person only once a week. That is especially true of the low-income groups.
It worries me that in many of the historic towns and villages of Norfolk, with its narrow roads, we see enormous lorries tearing through the areas in large


numbers. I wish to draw the Minister's attention especially to the A143 which leads to a port, because he has told us that such roads will be given priority. In regard to bypasses, what degree of priority will be given to some of those schemes? I know that some of them are quite expensive, but they are much less expensive than are the major trunk routes which have been planned so far.
Having been heartened by what I read about the environmental aspects, I was a little depressed to read paragraph 258 of the White Paper which says:
Many towns and villages will have to endure the intrusion of traffic for years to come.
Bypasses have for many years slipped behind in the queue in priority terms. Will the Government look more favourably at the provision of bypasses, especially in situations where there is a large environmental content?
I wish to put one specific question to the Minister about bypasses. In my constituency the Attleborough bypass has a high degree of priority, and is fairly well up the queue in the Government's road programme, coming in 1981. In December 1975 the Government held a public consultation inquiry, and I was told after that inquiry that it was hoped comparatively soon to announce the results of the route. Blight has often been a problem in these situations because there is always uncertainty whether the route will run north or south of a town or whatever it may be. It is desirable to select the required route so that people know where they are. Therefore, I am depressed at the delay which has occurred in announcing the route. I was told in a letter from the Minister's predecessor on 16th February 1976:
The Department is now analysing the questionnaires received—over 250—and I hope that it will not be too long before an announcement is made on the preferred route.
Then in June 1976 I was told that that announcement was expected soon. Yet now, in a recent Parliamentary Answer, I was told that an announcement on the preferred route was not to be made till later this year. This is a long delay, and I ask the Minister to try to expedite announcement of the route so that people will know where they stand.
My third point relates to another part of the White Paper—namely, to the implications of the greater rÔle given to local authorities. Again, this is a point in the White Paper that I welcome.
In paragraph 74 the Government make it clear that
Local authorities are in the best position to know how people feel about local transport services.
I agree.
Paragraph 78 says that within the national framework the Government want to see a much bigger rÔle for local authorities. With this determination to give local authorities a bigger rÔle, coupled with the fact that the trunk routes and motorways will run down in importance, there will obviously be a much smaller rÔle for the road construction units. When will the changeover take place? When can county councils expect to see a much bigger rÔle for themselves? A bigger rÔle would be much welcomed in Norfolk because there is a strong impression there that it is low on the list of priorities in the Eastern Road Construction Unit.
Would it not be better, and perhaps follow the guidelines of the White Paper, to give more power, responsibility and resources back to the local authorities, not only in the co-ordination of the bus and rail services but in the building and deciding of priorities of some routes, such as the All, which is now the Eastern Road Construction Unit's responsibility? That, coupled with working on individual chunks of the route, would enable us to make such faster progress.
My last question is also related to the rôle of local authorities. How much is being delegated back to the local authorities in this emphasis on maximum freedom of choice locally? How much of a co-ordinating r ôle will they have? I understand that they are to be consulted much more on the closure of local rail services, and that they will have to sort out more the co-ordination between rail and bus services in their own communities.
What is not clear to me from the White Paper is whether local authorities will have a proper say in capital programmes generally and in the choice of capital programmes as between road and rail. For example, it has been suggested that


the line from Ipswich to Norwich might be electrified. In an ideal world that may be desirable, but at present it is a perfectly adequate line. I suspect that most people in Norfolk would much rather have the money spent, if it is available, on the road programme there rather than achieving only marginal improvements to the rail service. So is it only current expenditure or is capital expenditure also involved in this new delegation to local authorities?
On a separate point but also related to local choice, I very much support what my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree said earlier about speed limits. The Minister gave a sympathetic response, and I am glad that he is looking at the matter again. May I impress upon him that it is not the impression in parish councils or the county council that the Department applies the guidelines flexibly. Every time I raise the issue of a speed limit—and I have 160 towns and villages, so the matter comes up regularly—I run up against an obstacle at county council level. I am told "The Department has strict guidelines, including the accident criteria. You must meet the accident criteria as well as traffic flows and speed. Therefore, we can do nothing about it."
I take the Minister's point that we cannot have a whole confusion of different kinds of speed limits all over the country. But it is not unreasonable for most villages to expect to have a 30 m.p.h. or 40 m.p.h. limit. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will speed up his investigation into the matter. If bypasses cannot be achieved quickly enough—and we all know that there must be priorities for them—a more flexible approach to speed limits would greatly ease the worries of inhabitants of many of the villages suffering from heavy lorries, not only because the limits may reduce traffic speed but for psychological reasons. Little expenditure would be required to provide a great deal of help.
Those are the four points that I wanted to put to the Minister for clarification. I appeared on Anglian Television the night the White Paper was produced. One of the Minister's hon. Friends who is not too far removed from the transport world appeared at the same time and indicated quite clearly to the public at large that the White Paper was good news for East

Anglia. I still have some doubts. I have shown where they lie and how in theory I believe that it could be good, but we must see it in practice. I hope that the Minister will now be able to show that my doubts can be removed.

7.5 a.m.

Mr. John Farr: I share many of the views expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, South (Mr. MacGregor) in the latter part of his speech when he referred to such matters as bypasses and the congestion which occurs in parts of his constituency where bypasses are either needed or have been built and are inadequate. He referred to the position of small towns and villages which badly need bypasses and which have their community life disrupted through a lack of them.
I wish to refer to one major national trunk road which is on the drawing board. It is the A1-M1 link road. It may well be constructed within the next 10 or 15 years. The feasibility study has been undertaken. Plans are afoot to finalise and detail the exact route. The problems arising from the lack of this link road have been more marked in my constituency than anywhere else. In my constituency in South Leicestershire is the east-west trunk road, the A427, through which, every day, an ever-growing burden of heavy goods vehicles rumbles. This incessant noise has severe social repercussions in the villages along that road.
We have been told that the Al-M1 link will resolve all these problems and that the difficulties experienced by the villagers on the A427 and in the ancient and historic town of Harborough, which is cut into four by the A427 and the A6, will be ended when the link is constructed. In a fascinating speech my hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, South referred to the White Paper. The story of the proposed link has highlighted failings in the Department's planning policies for these important new roads.
There has been a massive public participation scheme on the link road, but the participation was undertaken too late. Most of the local authorities in the area of the South Midlands affected by the link—the box of the south of Leicestershire and Northamptonshire—were not consulted about the desirability of having


this new link road until the plans were revealed by the then Minister at a Press conference at Kettering on 30th October 1974.
Since then many of us have felt that the proper consultation should have taken place with the local authorities much sooner, not on the exactitude of the link road and not asking the public, as they were asked on 30th October 1974, to fill in a form saying on which side of their village they wanted the road to run, and what exact route they preferred within a given band. Many people believe that there should have been public participation many years earlier, when there were—in fact, there still are—two alternatives. One is that which the Department has chosen—to go ahead with the link road, to give the public certain alternative bands to choose from.
But instead of having a new link road which will swallow up more than 800 acres of good farm land —I declare an interest, because the new link road will go over part of good farm land which I farm—there was and still is another method of serving exactly the same purpose of getting traffic from Fast to West between the major North-South highways. It would also provide peace and quiet to the villages on the A427 without constructing a brand-new link road, but by undertaking a dual scheme of improving the A427 and bypassing the villages on its route, including Market Harborough to the south and thence link up with the A6 and the A604 to the Al, coupled with an upgrading of the scheme which is at present afoot to improve the A45 running further south in Northampton which is already a link road between the M1 and the A1.
Public participation should have taken place then. The two alternatives should have been placed before the general public and local authorities and a decision taken then in public, after full public participation, rather than a decision not to upgrade existing roads but to go ahead by blazing a new trail across the heart of England taken in secrecy and behind closed doors in the Department of Transport.
The decision—if it means action and relief for my constituents, I welcome it—has, however, definitely prolonged the dis-

quiet and the discomfort which my constituents are suffering because of the ravages of the heavy traffic on the A427. On this road which runs from east to west between Market Harborough and Lutterworth there are in my constituency four important communities including the ancient town of Market Harborough and the villages of Lubenham, Theddingworth, and Husbands Bosworth. One result of the announcement that the link is to go ahead is that planned and firmly promised bypasses—for instance, for the old village of Theddingworth, which has narrow, twisted streets and suffers considerable disruption from heavy vehicles —will not go ahead as planned. In 1974 Theddingworth was promised that the building of a bypass was to start in 1976, but it has been postponed indefinitely.
Market Harborough, many of whose old buildings are adjacent to the very busy A6 running from north to south, has suffered just as much. Some of the buildings, which are of great antiquity, are boarded up and out of use because of vibration from passing traffic. Market Harborough is suffering, but I have been told in reply to Questions in the House that no decision will be taken about bypassing Market Harborough in any way until the Al-M1 link plans are proceeded with.
I want to be brief at this hour, but I must tell the Minister that these communities, which I have the honour and pleasure to represent—the ancient town of Market Harborough and the small villages of Lubenham, Husbands Bosworth and Theddingworth on the A427—are not prepared to wait in their present disquiet and discomfort any longer, and they certainly are not prepared to wait for some form of relief by way of bypass until such time as the new link road is constructed some miles to the south, which could well be 10 years ahead.
Last year, so great were the problems in Theddingworth that I was forced to send in a social worker to get reports, which I later forwarded to the Minister at the Department of Health and Social Security, on life in the village, and one of the major features which that social worker highlighted in his report was the way in which village life in that ancient community, hitherto always closely knit.


has been divided in two by this monstrosity of a road with constant heavy traffic cutting the northern half from the south.
I hope that the Minister will recognise that some of what I have said has a great depth of feeling behind it. I ask him to acknowledge that, merely because there is the probability that we shall have a massive link road running from east to west some 10 or 15 miles further south in another county, it is not good enough to say to these villagers "You must wait until such time as that is constructed, and in the meantime your bypass plans are put into cold storage". Certainly, Market Harborough will not wait for a north-south and east-west bypass. I urge the Minister to give me a reply which I can take to my constituents in the recess so that they may at least examine it with some hope.

7.17 a.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. John Horam): By leave of the House, may I speak a second time on the Bill? Since there are other hon. Members wishing to speak on other topics, and they will have waited even longer than the hon. Member for Norfolk, South (Mr. MacGregor) has had to wait, I shall, if he will forgive me, be brief. I ask the same indulgence of the hon. Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr).
I take, first, the question of the transport supplementary grant. As I told the hon. Member for Braintree (Mr. Newton) earlier, I accept that some counties do not do well out of this grant. Indeed, a number of shires get nothing at all out of the TSG, which is obviously a highly unsatisfactory state of affairs from their point of view. It is unsatisfactory from the Government's point of view also in this sense. If in the general order of priorities and proposals for financial arrangements it is right to take account of both the local interest and the national interest in choosing priorities, if we make no financial contribution through the TSG we cannot indicate our view of priorities quite so forcibly as we might otherwise do. So it is not entirely satisfactory from the Government's view.
Nevertheless, we are looking into the situation precisely because of the diffi-

culty to which I have referred. These grants are worked out on a formula basis, which is very hard to alter and make more sensitive to the needs of particular communities and counties. It is not easy to achieve a change, but we are looking into it.
On current subsidies, the hon. Gentleman slightly misrepresented the situation. Not all public transport subsidies are increasing. For example, the rail freight subsidy of £70 million is being phased out at the beginning of this year. Indeed, the current passenger support grant is being cut by £20 million by the end of the decade. This has been a matter of some complaint by the railway industry. It is not simply a matter of switching money from capital spending on roads to revenue support.
Chapter 2 of the White Paper contains some fairly sensible strictures on the disadvantages of subsidies as such which will I am sure, ring true in the heart of a good Conservative as well as in the heart of a sensible Socialist. I think that the hon. Gentleman will recognise that we have not gone overboard on this matter but that there are real problems which I have tried to indicate.
The question of road spending should be put in a little more perspective. The hon. Gentleman pointed out that there was a decline in road spending and an increase in public transport expenditure, but he will also know that there is a decline in the total transport budget in my Department from £2,620 million in 1976–77 to about £2,200 million by the end of the decade. That is a substantial decline, entirely due to the fact that we were in the Department of the Environment and had not a Ministry of our own. It would have been different had that history been different. But that is something we have had to live with and, in the light of what I have said, railway subsidies have not come out too badly.
The hon. Gentleman also said that bus subsidies affect only a small number of people in comparison with spending on roads, and that a large number of people can be relieved in their severe daily road problems. But many of the small number of people affected by public transport subsidies, or who benefit from them, are


among the most needy, and the hon. Gentleman will be aware of the general campaign which his own Front-Bench spokesman on transport has waged in the last year particularly. Certainly I have felt the brunt of it in regard to the rural transport crisis, the disappearance of buses from villages, and so on. We have tried to take that very much on board, and that is something which we can help only by the two means of relaxing licensing arrangements and also pumping in more money, although recognising the limitations of this.
As to the specific questions, one of them concerned the All, a road which has been scheduled for a comprehensive improvement over the years. It is true that as a result of successive public expenditure exercises—not transport exercises—that comprehensive improvement has slipped back. But given the fact that there are, as the hon. Gentleman says, big differences in the requirements between particular sections of the road, I notice that the most needed requirements were entirely concentrated in the hon. Gentleman's own constituency. It is simple coincidence that that was so. I accept that the greatest need is north of Thetford. Indeed, the new policy will help, because it specifically says that we shall not improve comprehensively to a uniform standard but select the most pressing parts of the problem and deal with them first, even if others have to be left. That stretch of the road is likely in principle to benefit from this new approach. As to bypasses, equally I think one can say that there will be a more favourable attitude to bypassing towns where there is a very beautiful or historic market town involved.
The decisions that we took this year, before the White Paper came out, were in line with the thinking that was to appear in the White Paper. For example, Ludlow did not necessarily qualify on purely economic criteria or industrial grounds, but it got its bypass brought forward because I regarded it as worth while in environmental terms. That was the result of my personal view, which was favourable to the kind of thing suggested by the hon. Gentleman.
We are reviewing the role of the road construction units as part of our general look at manpower levels. This has flown

from the request by the previous Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Huyton (Sir H. Wilson), to look at manpower levels. That will be done. So far there is no clear view on the future role of the RCUs. We shall have to look first at the road schemes following the new plans in the White Paper and then consider the implications for the RCUs. As no clear view has yet emerged, I cannot say anything about that aspect.
I refer now to the question whether the local authorities, as part of the greater powers and responsibilities that we are giving them regarding public transport planning, will also have not only more power over revenue support but more control over capital spending. Regarding British Railways, the answer in the main is "No". British Railways will retain control, subject to ministerial control, of their investment programme. If a railway line remains part of the national network, British Railways will have the major say in what investment takes place. We have proposals for designating certain lines, which are not part of the national network, as local lines. In all cases the county will have clear control over that situation. That will include investment matters as well as revenue support and the general question of the future of a particular line. We have yet to consult on that matter, so the details remain unsettled. We are anxious to have views. That is the general picture. It is right that, in trying to achieve greater co-ordination at local level, as much capital spending as possible as well as revenue support should be included in that general control.
The hon. Gentleman referred to the immediate aftermath of the White Paper. I think that he appeared on a programme about this matter with one of my hon. Friends who is not too far distant from us, although I hope that he is sleeping soundly this morning. My hon. Friend claimed that the White Paper was good news for East Anglia. I think that it is, first because of the rural emphasis in the White Paper, which has been widely acknowledged and welcomed, and that must help predominantly rural counties, and, secondly, because of the emphasis on smaller road schemes and bypasses. That must help with conditions more common in Norfolk than in other parts of the country, though the general problem of


financial constraints will inevitably mean that some projects are slowed down from time to time when we may wish that they were not.
I turn now to the comments made by the hon. Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr). I live in north Northamptonshire and travel frequently along the A427. It is my link to the M6 and M1. I know Husbands Bosworth, Market Harborough and Theddingworth very well. I appreciate the problems that they face.
The A427 is a principal road for which the Department is not responsible. Responsibility lies with the Leicester County Council, and it is the agent for constructing any bypass that may be appropriate. I do not know its plans in relation to the Lubenham, Husbands Bosworth and Theddingworth bypass, and the hon. Member will have to approach the Leicester County Council for further information about that.
The A6 bypass at Harborough is our responsibility, but the Leicester County Council is acting as our agent and is currently preparing an economic assessment of this project. The environmental effects of removing heavy traffic from the town centre are being taken into account, as are the economic criteria.
If it is found that a bypass is needed, it will go into the preparation pool, and we shall go through all the necessary procedures. I am afraid that this will take some time. It could be six or seven years before the schemes comes to fruition. It is a disappointingly long time, but for the sort of scheme that is appropriate for Market Harborough there are many statutory procedures and there is a lot of public consultation.
I have become a little impatient at the rather over-elaborate analysis of the public consultation exercise, and I have asked my officials to speed it up and to come to a relatively crude number counting that gives us basically what we want. Often there is a clear preference. I have looked at the time taken after the public have given their verdict, and often it is incredibly long. If it were cut down by six months, that would be six months well saved. Knowing the problems of Market Harborough, I hope that this is done as expeditiously as possible.
The A1-M1 link is a major scheme which has been planned for many years. In a sense it is a plan on the old, pre-White Paper basis, and it will be reviewed as part of a general review of major schemes. I understand the reason why the particular route was chosen, as opposed to the choice the hon. Member mentioned. It is more direct, and since it is essentially a route taking national and industrial traffic from the Midlands to the Haven Ports, it is a national road and directness is a major consideration.
This is part of the inevitable conflict between trying to plan for national flows of traffic and resolving the implications for small villages on parallel roads which one would like to improve for their own sakes. These have to wait for some time because we are dealing here with a new national A1-M1 link. I know that is not entirely satisfactory from the hon. Member's point of view, but he will understand choice of this option. It will be looked at most carefully in future in the context of the White Paper.

Orders of the Day — ARMED FORCES (PAY AND ALLOWANCES)

7.33 a.m.

Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles: I apologise to you, Mr. Speaker, to Ministers and the staff of the House for keeping you out of your hammocks on this morning watch. I do so only because I believe that something is very wrong with Service pay.
I get this message loud and clear in my constituency where we have a Green Jackets depot, the Royal Hampshire Headquarters, the Army Air Corps at Middle Wallop, the Headquarters of the Army Pay Corps at Worthy Down, a large part of the garrison of Tidworth, RAF Andover, which is in the process of closing down, and the Royal Engineers establishment at Barton Stacey. I also get the same message about pay from my past Service contacts, and from working with the Defence Committee, for example, on a recent visit to HMS "Hermes" in the Mediterranean.
At all levels in all three Services there seems to be not only disappointment but a worrying sort of silent, clench-toothed anger. The senior officers have had their


differentials eroded yet again, but their frustration comes from a different reason. It is because they know that the men whom they command are not getting a fair deal about pay and yet they, the senior officers, who wish to look after them, are powerless to do anything about it.
The whole basis of the annual awards, as I understand it, is to achieve comparability with civilian life. I imagine that the Minister will agree that that is the starting point of what we are trying to achieve. The Minister indicates assent. Yet it is crystal clear that that has not been achieved. What are the facts? Under phase 1 and phase 2 of the Government pay policy average industrial earnings increased by no less than 22½ per cent. in the 21 months up to March this year. Meanwhile, to cover the 24 months up to the same date the Armed Forces have been accorded two pay rises totalling only 14·9 per cent.
The forces are being squeezed into the straitjacket of the Government's incomes policy whereas everyone else in the country seems to be managing to avoid it. The point that the Minister does not seem to have hoisted on board is that each year that that happens the effect is cumulative, because if one does not achieve the starting point in a given year one goes further and further astern of station and gets even further behind.
Several most glaring anomalies were pointed out during the most recent debate on Service pay and conditions. For example, an RAF Phantom pilot receives less than a London bus driver. The Secretary of State demonstrated outside Grunwick against the "slave wages" there, and yet the average wage of a Grunwick employee turns out to be only 53 pence a week more than that which the right hon. Gentleman pays the soldiers that he sends to fight in Northern Ireland. We heard of unskilled civilian employees in Navy short messes with a take-home pay, including overtime, of £80 to £110 a week, which is far more than is received by the skilled petty officers on such stations, who receive about £50 a week.
There are other anomalies within the Services. There are problems about food and accommodation charges and the effects of the Rent Act on Service

families who own or who wish to own their own homes. There is the matter of tax relief for the Navy personnel overseas and so on. One must ask whether the present level of the "X" factor is adequate compensation for the enormous turbulance of Service life.
I shall stick to the main issue, which is comparability. Apparently the Government have admitted that there is no comparability, because during the last debate the Secretary of State said:
When the pay of the Armed Forces was reviewed in 1976 it was, like all other wage settlements under round 1 of the pay policy, strictly subject to the round 1 guidelines. It was inevitable that the pay award of April 1976 could not retain the pay comparability that had been achieved in April of the previous year.
I cannot see the logic of that. If Service pay were to be raised properly, it would not be out of step with comparability with the previous year or any other time.
The Secretary of State went on:
The Armed Forces were not alone in that respect because the effect of the voluntary incomes policy has been to disturb relativities right across the board."—[Official Report, 16th June 1977; Vol. 933, c. 603.]
I agree with the point about relativities within the Services, but comparability means the same pay limits for the Services as for outside workers—and that has not been happening.
The Services are getting what sailors call a green rub. We must look at the system to see what has gone wrong. I am sure that individual members of the Pay Review Body are distinguished, well meaning and infinitely painstaking people, but their terms of reference are at fault. The body should do its job of evaluating the work and coming up with genuine comparability with industry—the figure that would give true comparability, regardless of Government constraints. The Government could then apply pay policy restrictions if necessary and take the political odium for doing so.

Mr. Michael Mates: I see that the Minister is shaking his head, but the suggestion of my hon. and gallant Friend is exactly the way to do it. When the Pay Review Body had provided comparability between the Services and industry across the board, it would be clear to the Service man that the Government had decided not to implement the body's report.
An analogy is what happened with the Boyle Committee and hon. Members' salaries. No one told Lord Boyle not to decide what hon. Members should be paid. He was told to decide the rate for the job, compared with other jobs, and it was the Government who told us that we could not have the increases because of the pay policy.
There is anger in the Services because they feel that the Review Body is discriminating against them or at least not telling them what they are worth. The Review Body is the only yardstick for a Service man. It has been accepted as an independent and fair-minded body that does not take political factors into account. I hope that the Minister will say something more constructive on this matter than he has said in our previous two debates.

Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles: If the review body's comparability figures were correct and the Government's constraints were being observed in industry, there would be no discrepancy to rectify and Service men would know where they stand. Now they feel only that they have been done out of something and they do not know what.
The Secretary of State was right when he said that Service men are willing to bear their share of the burden of economic difficulties facing this country. They are not trying to get away from that, but they should not be asked to bear more than their fair share. They should not be asked to bite the bullet while average industrial earnings race ahead of the Review Body's recommendations.
We are talking about a military salary that is the only means of existence for 330,000 men and women who have no industrial muscle and who are under a contract with the Government that they cannot break. They have no overtime or productivity deals applicable to their conditions of service. It is not fair for the Government to seek to shelter behind the skirts of the Pay Review Body. It is clear that the Review Body is unhappy about the results of its own work. In paragraph 8 of its 1976 report it states:
If, in the long term, pay levels are to be maintained for the Armed Forces that are competitive with pay levels for comparable work outside, remedial action will be needed.

We regard it as our duty to make these problems known to the Government to enable account to be taken of them in the development of future pay policies and measures
It appears that the Government took no heed of that paragraph. No action is apparent.
In its 1972 report in paragraph 2 the Review Body states:
Once again, therefore, effectively we are only free to recommend whether the pay of the Armed Forces should be increased by the maximum amount allowed by the pay limits, or by some lesser amount.
In paragraph 23 it states:
We attach particular importance to the need for a measure of flexibility in the period after 1st August 1977 in a form that is directly relevant to the Armed Forces pay system.
That brings the matter right up to date in two days' time. The Review Body concluded that only if
a measure of flexibility in the period after 1st August
is provided will it be possible to begin to deal with the problems that I have described.
Faced with these words from the Review Body, surely we should expect a statement from the Secretary of State or the Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Army. All we have had hitherto is a reply by the Secretary of State to a Question two days ago when the right hon. Gentleman was asked what will happen after 1st August, the period highlighted by the Review Body. He replied:
A 12-month gap between pay settlements is a key element in the orderly return to normality on pay in all sectors."—[Official Report, 26th July 1977, Vol. 936, c. 164.]
Will the Government take action, or having imposed an unfair pay settlement on the Armed Forces will they allow them to sweat it out?
I have said enough to indicate that soldiers, sailors and airmen are being disgracefully treated and that the trouble lies at political level. Many hon. Members and others have referred to morale in the Services being at rock bottom, or have used similar emotive phrases. I do not think that that is so. I do not join in that hue and cry. In general, despite being blatantly under-paid, the forces are angry. However, they still perform their duties in a way that makes them the envy of our partners in NATO. Certainly they have the admiration of the whole


world. Above all, our Service men have a pride in themselves and a pride in the job that they are doing—[Interruption.] Perhaps I might have the Minister's attention before he cooks up his little scheme with his Whips. Service men are just as much worried by the cuts in their equipment as about their own pay. I wish that the hon. Gentleman could have heard some of the comments made to me about the Government's defence policy as a whole.

Mr. Mates: I take this opportunity to confirm what my hon. and gallant Friend has said about the state of morale of the Forces, especially the soldiers in Northern Ireland, where I was some 10 days ago. They are angry but morale remains high. That can continue only if they are convinced that they are getting a fair deal.
As a cheeky young soldier, perhaps I may point out to my hon. and gallant Friend from the Senior Service that the soldiers in Ulster are being scandalously treated. They are getting a daily allowance of 50p, which allowance is taxed and was awarded to them in 1974 and has not been changed since then. The Minister looks bored. He has heard me say this before. When I visited the Republic of Ireland, I discovered that Irish soldiers on border duty south of the border—indeed, on the day I was there, I saw troops from both sides searching for the body of Captain Nairac—are drawing £1·50 a day because of their service in the Northern Ireland context, although on the southern side of the border. That disparity of three to one is not something of which anyone who has responsibility for the British Army should be proud.

Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles: That is another telling point.
I sum up what I have been saying in this way. Officers and men go into the Forces not for profit but to do a worthwhile job. They should be rewarded fairly and they should be given the tools to do the job.

7.51 a.m.

Mr. David Hunt: I am very glad of the opportunity to intervene in the debate and to congratulate my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Win-

chester (Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles) on crystallising some of the problems and emphasising them in a correct manner.
My interest in these matters has arisen as a result of an enormous amount of correspondence I have received from constituents, and in particular from serving members of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in Northern Ireland. It was only a few weeks ago that I received several letters from constituents serving in Northern Ireland expressing very deep concern about the level of pay and conditions of work, and particularly about the level of allowances.
Some time ago I received a very difficult letter from one constituent, in the sense that it enclosed stamps to the value of 3p and said,
Would you please pass this to the Prime Minister because this is the amount of the pay increase I have just received. We here, your constituents and, indeed, all of us, feel very strongly about the way in which our pay has been reduced over the last few weeks, months and years, in comparison with that of other Government employees.
Because of these letters, I read very carefully the report of the debate in the House on conditions of service. I was very concerned about some of the comments made by the Secretary of State, who seemed to glory in the fact that the Services had been treated on all fours with the rest of the community. My hon. and gallant Friend has already quoted part of what the Secretary of State said. The Secretary of State also said:
it is not my party's policy that the Armed Forces… should be exempt from the sacrifices that have been made by the trade union movement.
However, in these abnormal times …the operation of a voluntary incomes policy has meant"—
as my hon. and gallant Friend said—
that we have had to suspend the use of comparability as a criterion for Service pay."—[Official Report, 16th June 1977; Vol. 933, c. 602.]
This raises a major fundamental question as to whether it is right to treat members of the Armed Forces on all fours with the rest of the community at a time when there is economic difficulty.
I pose this question. There are elements in the rest of the community who, because of their industrial muscle, have been able to secure for themselves a better position than others in the community.


We all know the case of the miners. Is it really to be the test not of how much power and muscle one has but of how much one is prepared to use before one's case is accepted in its true validity? If there ever was a special case for ensuring that Government employees, in particular —and, indeed, members of the community at large—had not only comparability but proper pay and conditions of work, surely it is that of the Armed Forces, and particularly those serving in Northern Ireland.

Mr. Mates: My hon. Friend is making a sound point. Would he care to speculate as to what might happen if we were to reach the stage with regard to the Armed Forces that we have now reached with the police? The police now feel that they need some sort of industrial action at their beck and call in order to get themselves a fair deal. I hope and pray that our Armed Forces never reach that stage, but it is a prospect that should not be ignored.

Mr. Hunt: I hope that the Minister will respond when he replies to this short debate. That is a very worrying situation, because the Government have it within their control to moderate and regulate the position. If they allow the situation to go on as it is at the moment, my hon. Friend the Member for Peters-field (Mr. Mates) will be proved correct.
There is, and there must be, a limit to true loyalty. Certainly with regard to the police, many long-serving members whose integrity, honesty and loyalty have never been called into question are seriously considering withholding their work and their willingness to work, not in a strike performance but in protest. Far be it from me to suggest that the Armed Forces will ever reach that stage.
Knowing many of them, I know that we have a fine body of men who would not seek to take any action to disrupt the regulation of life in this country or, indeed, in any part of the world where they serve, but is it right that we should test their loyalty and take them to the brink by placing them in a situation in which they are suffering? I have read the last two debates on this subject, and certain figures are extremely worrying. When one analyses the amount that is paid in rent by married couples the dominant

partner of whom is serving in the Armed Forces, one begins to realise why the situation is so critical.
Some figures have already come up in the debate, and the Minister will know them very well. I do not need to repeat them. But the insurance position has not been dealt with properly, especially with regard to those serving in Northern Ireland. Indeed, the position in Northern Ireland highlights the position throughout the Armed Forces, because there the inequalities are emphasised and it is from there that I have received representations from my constituents.
The Minister will know that I have been in correspondence with him on the case I raised on the Adjournment concerning Bombadier Heinz Pisarek. That case highlights another difficulty whereby men cannot enter service in Northern Ireland and relax in the knowledge that their dependants will be looked after if they are killed or seriously wounded.
In the case I have just mentioned, the widow will get no compensation. I understand the calculations that have been gone into. The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office has spent a great deal of time explaining to me how they are arrived at. That is another area of grievance.
One can crystallise the difficulties by talking about the fact that there are many lance-corporals and privates who in our terms are living below the poverty line. How can the Government be satisfied with a situation in which a large number of privates and lance-corporals are receiving rent rebates and other benefits of that sort? This means that they are living below the poverty line. Their wives do not have the same job opportunities in Northern Ireland as they might otherwise have had.
My hon. Friend the Member for Peters-field highlighted the whole affair. He posed the question of whether it was right that anybody serving in Northern Ireland should move to less comfortable and more onerous circumstances and suffer a reduction in pay and living standards. My hon. Friend posed that question time and again in the last debate. The only response that I could see was the Minister claiming that my hon. Friend was dealing more with the problem than with the solution.
If it is not for the Opposition to emphasise a problem, what are they to do? Obviously, it is within the Government's power to do something. I hope that the Minister will be forced to treat members of our Armed Forces as a special case. If we recognise that there is an argument for industrial workers such as coal miners to be treated as a special case, what case could be more special than that of the men who are willing to risk their lives, their families and their capital by serving in Northern Ireland with a future which is less rosy than it would be if they were engaged in almost any other occupation?
A constituent sent me 3p in stamps and said that that was his pay increase. He added in his letter
Are you going to do anything about it?
I want to write to my constituent and say that as a result of this debate the Minister has said that he is willing to force through the Cabinet an acceptance of the fact that members of the Armed Forces in Northern Ireland are a special case.
The Opposition are prepared to march to No. 10 with the Minister to demand that from the Prime Minister. We are prepared to support the Minister. He could use his natural abilities—eloquence, charm, efficiency, intelligence and economic brilliance—to demonstrate to the Government that we are not prepared to sit back and allow the Armed Forces serving in Northern Ireland to be discomfited in this way.
My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Winchester mentioned the figures for average industrial earnings. They were horrifying. Far from being treated as a special case, Service men are being treated in the opposite manner. They are being treated as if they were so ordinary and so low down in the calibre list that they have no case at all.
The Minister cannot be satisfied with that. Men are being posted from superior and more comfortable billets and are being made worse off by going to Northern Ireland, where there are more dangers and increasing difficulties, where there are no job opportunities for their wives, and where rents are higher. It is wrong that they should be worse off as a result of being posted to Northern Ireland.
The vital question of Army pay and conditions in Northern Ireland has been

raised on many occasions in the House. Time and again hon. Members in all parts of the House have urged Ministers to take action to remedy the situation. Many of these men are living below the poverty line. [HON. MEMBERS: "Nonsense."] If Labour Members who are now shouting had been here earlier, they would have heard my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Winchester giving the figures. They are figures of which we should be ashamed. I know that many of my constituents feel that the case in this respect is extremely strong.
Will the Minister urge his governmental colleagues to treat the Armed Forces as a special case? If he were to do so, I am convinced that he would find support both in the House and in the country. Let him ask himself why this matter has been so sensationalised in the Press. The answer is that the Press knows that this is a matter of deep public concern. Before the situation becomes worse, the Minister should respond by giving us the assurances that we seek.

8.6 a.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Army (Mr. Robert C. Brown): The hon. and gallant Member for Winchester (Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles) has given us a further opportunity to debate a subject to which the House devoted more than four hours of its time as recently as 16th June. Since then several hon. Members have tabled Questions on various aspects of the subject. It is inevitable, therefore, that today some of the ground previously covered in debate and in Questions will be gone over again. I have no objection to this. The pay and allowances of the Armed Forces are a complicated question which is perhaps clarified by some repetition.
More importantly, however, I welcome this opportunity to restate the importance that we as a Government have attached to ensuring that the Armed Forces in the context of current pay policies are treated fairly and equitably in regard to their pay and allowances. I also welcome the opportunity of placing again on the record the Government's appreciation of the Armed Forces' loyalty, professionalism and devotion to duty, sometimes, as the House knows, in very difficult situations in Northern Ireland and elsewhere in the world where they are required to serve.
A great deal has been said and written on the subject of the recent pay award for the Armed Forces. We have been accused of giving pay increases with one hand and taking them away with the other in increased food and accommodation charges. The long-standing arrangements for the concurrent changes in pay and charges inevitably mean that on 1st April each year the Service man in considering his disposable income looks at the net difference between his increased pay and increased charges. This year, as everyone knows, the general cost of living increased significantly. This has meant that the service charges which reflect outside costs have also increased, with a corresponding significant impact on the net effect of pay and charges taken together.
The pay award itself was the highest that could be given under phase 2 of the present pay policy. The increases in charges were the minimum which could be applied consistent with the long-established formulae for their calculation. In this pay review, therefore, the Services were thus treated no better or worse than any other sector of the community. We might, indeed, have held down or abated the accommodation charges, but if we had done so we would, under the pay policy rules, have had to accept an offsetting reduction in the level of the pay award. Such a reduction in accommodation charges would thus have benefited those housed and fed by the Services to the detriment of those who make their own arrangements. The latter have already had to find from their own pockets and without the benefit of the current pay rise all the additional costs which are now in part reflected in the revised level of charges. I believe, therefore, that it was right that the Services should accept the maximum possible pay increase rather than allow this to be diminished in order to lower accommodation charges.

Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles: The Minister is on exactly the point I was trying to make, but he still does not seem to have got it. He says that it is the maximum possible amount that could be given, but we are talking about comparability with the level that industry has gone up to. That has nothing to do with what the Government say it should have gone up to. Each year the Services should

be brought up to what industry has actually gone up to. The Government have not been able to restrain pay to exactly what they hoped at the beginning of each round. Maybe they cannot be blamed, but that is the position. The Forces should be brought up to true comparability, regardless of what the Government guideline says, because that is where industry has gone, for better or worse. Can the Minister meet that point, which is serious?

Mr. Brown: The Armed Forces Pay Review Body has stated, and I accept, that the Services generally have fallen behind their civillian analogues during the operation of stages 1 and 2 of the pay policy. The reasons for this are well known—the movement in outside wages in the period between the 1975 pay award for the Services and the introduction of pay restraint, and subsequent wage drift in outside employment. The Armed Forces Pay Review Body in its reports has represented that this falling away from comparability should be put right as soon as practicable, and I accept this as a general aim as soon as it is practicable in the context of pay policy and the economic health of the country generally.
The hon. and gallant Member has again today, as in an earlier debate, argued forcibly that the Armed Forces Pay Review Body should have published in its report—even if only for information—the pay rates for the Services which were shown to be justified by comparability with outside analogues. The Pay Review Body is an independent one, and its report is, of course, its own, but I can understand that it would not be attracted to the idea of constructing a hypothetical range of Service pay rates. The process of job evaluation leading to an assessment of pay comparability is a complex one and subject to a variety of factors, none of which remains constant for very long. Inevitably the results vary from time to time and relativities between different pay groups can change.
I would not wish to speak for the Pay Review Body, but I would understand if against this background it considered that hypothetical pay rates might be misleading for the future and might indeed give rise to expectations which might not in the final event be justified and met.


Against this background, therefore, I consider that the Armed Forces Pay Review Body, in a situation in which it, in common with the other two Review Bodies, has been asked to comply with pay policy, adopted a sensible and responsible approach and attitude in its recommendations.

Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles: The hon. Gentleman says that the Review Body has been asked to do this. Who asked it to do it?

Mr. Brown: That intervention shows the mistake of giving way. I am coming on to that precise point.

Mr. Mates: I can understand that it might be embarrassing if the Review Body were to produce a set of statistics which meant pay rises that would put the Government's pay policy in jeopardy. But what is unacceptable is the corollary: "We cannot give the Forces the rise to which we know they will be entitled, because of pay policy. Therefore, we shall not bother to see where they are with respect to outside industry. We shall not make the comparisons, because it would be tedious and lengthy, and we cannot implement them anyway." Therefore, for two years and for another year to come this exercise will not have been conducted.
Is it any wonder that this is causing the greatest concern among the troops because they do not know whether or to what extent their pay has fallen behind that of industry? The Review Body is there to do a job, and the Government have decided that it is not to do the job. Is it any wonder that morale is so low and that people are so upset about it?

Mr. Speaker: That is long enough for an interruption. The hon. Member was not addressing the House. He was interrupting the hon. Member who was addressing the House.

Mr. Mates: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I was trying to get the Minister to answer the question. I have made three attempts to do so. You know, Mr. Speaker, that this is a cause that is dear to my heart. I want an answer.

Mr. Brown: That is about the fourth speech that the House has heard from the hon. Member for Petersfield (Mr.

Mates), and it is the fourth intervention in this debate.
I was very pleased that in the debate on 16th June both Opposition and Government speakers paid tribute to the valuable work done by the Review Body, and I would not wish this opportunity to pass without again putting on record the gratitude of the Government for the work which the Review Body has given and is giving to its important duties.
So much for the past. Clearly the country still faces a period in which the need to restore our national economic health will be of paramount importance. The Chancellor in his recent statement has made clear the determination of the Government to ensure that the gains of the last two years in the fight against inflation are not thrown away in a free for-all wages scramble. No one would obtain long-term benefit from such a situation, least of all the forces.
The cornerstone of the present policy announced by the Chancellor is strict observance of the 12-month rule. There can be no exceptions, and, although I appreciate the difficulties under which the Services and their families are at present living, I cannot see any way in which they can expect an additional pay award before their traditional pay review date of April next year.
The Armed Forces Pay Review Body will continue to collect information on pay comparators so that, as in previous years, it will be able to recommend to the Government next spring appropriate pay increases and charges for the Armed Forces. In formulating its report, the Armed Forces Pay Review Body has been asked by the Prime Minister to make its recommendations within the policy recently set out by the Chancellor.
I appreciate fully that Service men and their families are, like many others in the community, under financial pressures and are suffering a real loss in their living standards—

Mr. David Hunt: Mr. David Hunt rose—

Mr. Brown: I will not give way again.

Mr. David Hunt: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Perhaps the Minister did not see who was attempting to intervene. He said "Not again", but I have not attempted to interrupt him before.

Mr. Speaker: That is not a point of order for me. It is for the Minister to decide when he gives way.

Mr. David Hunt: I thank the Minister for now giving way. There are many people who believe that members of the Armed Forces should be treated as a special case. The Minister is right to say that other people are suffering sacrifices, but no one else in the community—or, at least, very few people—is putting his life at risk as members of the Armed Forces are doing.

Mr. Brown: The hon. Member cannot have been listening. I said that there can be no special cases.

Sir Bernard Braine: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In the whole long trend of argument about public expenditure, this Bill is the last stage, and perhaps the only stage, when Back Benchers can nut considerations of the kind that my hon. Friends have been putting with great skill and fluency to Ministers. One has great respect for the Under-Secretary, but for him not to answer questions and instead to read carefully his prepared brief is to treat the whole House with contempt. This debate will be read by members of the Armed Forces. Surely it is within the power as well the wit of the Minister to understand the delicacy of the position and at least to treat the House with a little more courtesy.

Mr. Brown: The hon. Gentleman should know me well enough to realise that I am one of the most courteous of hon. Members, and I should have thought he would concede that there is no hon. Member who talks to more Service men than I do in the course of a week, month or a year.

The Parliament Secretary to the Ministry of Overseas Development (Mr. John Tomlinson): My hon. Friend has no need to apologise.

Mr. Brown: I am certainly not apologising. I was saying that Service men, like many others in society, are suffering from a real fall in their living standards. They will be disappointed, as many others in the community will be, that the 12-month rule means that they have to wait until April for their next pay review.
I become rather tired of being berated for the fact that the Northern Ireland pay allowance is only 50p per day. It is true that it has been 50p per day since 1974. I should have liked to see it increased, but within the constraints of the pay policy we could not increase it unless it came out of the local figure in the settlement. I remind the hon. Member for Petersfield in particular that his Government had nearly four years in which to recognise the awful conditions of Northern Ireland and make a special Northern Ireland payment. That was left until this Government came to power. I cannot stand this hypocrisy any more—

Mr. Mates: Mr. Mates rose—

Mr. Brown: —and I am certainly not giving way any more to the hon. Gentleman. The House will remember that quite recently, in recognition of the operational situation in Northern Ireland, we introduced field conditions for the permanent garrison there. That decision carried significant financial advantages for the Service men affected. In addition, over recent weeks the Government have taken the decision to continue the longstanding exemption from tax which the Forces enjoyed in respect of their leave warrants and home to place of duty entitlements. Previous Finance Acts had raised some question as to whether these allowances should be taxed. The Finance Bill which this House has just despatched to another place now contains explicit provisions to exclude the Services from taxation of their leave concessions, and the same Bill makes changes in the arrangements for mortgage interest relief which, I believe, will prove of value to the Services.
No one knows more than I do about the situation in relation to the Armed Forces, particularly the Army, and of the hardships which are being suffered in many cases. The Armed Services are pushing at an open door so far as the Government and I are concerned. We recognise the difficulties and, as soon as the present constraints are eased, we will do what we can to get pay towards comparability. I would be a hypocrite if I said or created the impression that next 1st April we shall ensure that the Armed Forces get back to comparability. I do not want to be a hypocrite and I do not


want to be a party to any such assurance. Clearly, it is not possible to recoup what has been lost over two years from a tight incomes policy.

Mr. Walter Harrison (Treasurer of Her Majesty's Household): Mr. Walter Harrison (Treasurer of Her Majesty's Household) rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.

Whereupon Mr. SPEAKER declared that the Question was not decided in the affirmative, because it was not supported by the majority prescribed by Standing Order No. 31 (Majority for Closure).

Mr. Ian Gow: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it in order to seek your guidance on the possibility of moving another motion to close the debate?

Mr. Speaker: We have only just dealt with one, and it is very early in the morning to ask me difficult questions.

Sir Bernard Braine: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The House is accustomed to Governments moving the closure on Consolidated Fund Bill debates at an early stage on the morning after the start of the Second Reading. That did not matter so much in the days when the House and Back Benchers in particular exercised effective control over Government expenditure. That has not been the case for some considerable time.

Hon. Members: No!

Mr. Mates: on a point of order—

Mr. Speaker: order. I cannot take a point of order. The House has instructed me that I must put the Question at once.

Question put, That the Question be now put:—

The House divided: Ayes 55, Noes 12.

Division No. 231]
AYES
[8.25 a.m.


Armstrong, Ernest
Harper, Joseph
Price, C. (Lewisham W)


Atkinson, Norman
Harrison, Rt Hon Walter
Richardson, Miss Jo


Barnett, Rt Hon Joel (Heywood)
Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy
Shaw, Arnold (Ilford South)


Benn, Rt Hon Anthony Wedgwood
Healey, Rt Hon Denis
Shore, Rt Hon Peter


Booth, Rt Hon Albert
Horam, John
Silkin, Rt Hon John (Deptford)


Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W)
Huckfield, Les
Snape, Peter


Brown, Ronald (Hackney S)
Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)
Stallard, A. W.


Carter-Jones, Lewis
Jackson, Miss Margaret (Lincoln)
Stewart, Rt Hon M. (Fulham)


Clemitson, Ivor
Jeger, Mrs Lena
Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley


Cocks, Rt Hon Michael (Bristol S)
John, Brynmor
Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton W)


Davis, Clinton (Hackney C)
Lipton, Marcus
Tomlinson, John


Deakins, Eric
Luard, Evan
Tuck, Raphael


Dell, Rt Hon Edmund
Maclennan, Robert
Walker, Terry (Kingswood)


Dormand, J. D.
McNamara, Kevin
Ward, Michael


Douglas-Mann, Bruce
Meacher, Michael
Williams, Alan Lee (Hornch'ch)


Ellis, John (Brigg &amp; Scun)
Mikardo, Ian



Ennals, David
Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Foot, Rt Hon Michael
Miller, Mrs Millie (Ilford N)
Mr Alf Bates and


Fraser, John (Lambeth, (N'w'd)
Mulley, Rt Hon Frederick
Mr Thomas Cox.


Freeson, Reginald
Pendry, Tom





NOES


Durant, Tony
Newton, Tony
Sainsbury, Tim


Gow, Ian (Eastbourne)
Osborn, John



Hunt, David (Wirral)
Prior, Rt Hon James
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


MacGregor, John
Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon
Mr Michael Mates and


Mather, Carol
Ridley, Hon Nicholas
Mr Norman Tebbit.


Morgan-Giles, Rear-Admiral

Indeed, some of the troubles with which we are confronted today stem from the failure of the House of Commons to do this and the frustrations caused to Back Benchers as a result.

Mr. Speaker: That is not a point of order.

Sir Bernard Braine: I am coming to that, Mr. Speaker. It is a monstrous invasion of the rights of the House of Commons—

Mr. Speaker: That is an argument. What is the point of order that the hon. Member wishes me to settle?

Sir Bernard Braine: I was only saying in passing that this is a monstrous invasion of the rights of the House of Commons in the very important matter of control of expenditure. This is the last opportunity that Back Benchers will have to express their views on the way in which taxpayers' money will be spent. Had the


debate started yesterday soon after Question Time, the House would be content to leave the matter where it is, but the debate started very late—

Mr. Speaker: With every respect to the hon. Member, he is arguing his case. The House has decided to carry on with the business. Another hon. Member is waiting to address the House.

Sir Bernard Braine: That is perfectly true, and it is one more illustration of the defective way—

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman has not got a point of order. I have not heard a single word that is a point of order for me. We are all aware that this is the last day, and it has been a rough week. The hon. Member must put a point of order or resume his seat.

Mr. Marcus Lipton: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Now that we are carrying on with our business, will you inquire whether the Prime Minister will make a statement on whether my right hon. Friend the Member for Huyton (Sir H. Wilson) was bugged when he was Prime Minister? Will there be a statement on that today?

Mr. Speaker: That is not a point of order for me.

Mr. Gow: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Should there not be a statement from the Leader of the House, who is now in consultation with the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury, about the Government's intentions for the remainder of today? When the Government can get only 55 hon. Members to support them in the Lobby, it leaves us in a state of bewilderment about the rest of today's proceedings. [An HON. MEMBER: "We could go on for another two weeks."] That is an excellent idea. Perhaps we could have a statement to that effect from the Lord President.

Mr. Speaker: I have had no request for a statement. The House has just decided to carry on with its normal business.

Orders of the Day — ENGLISH LANGUAGE (TEACHING OVERSEAS)

8.44 a.m.

Mr. Roderick MacFarquhar: For my hon. Friend the Minister this debate is starting at an unconscionably early hour on 28th July with rather more hon. Members in the Chamber to hear it than I had expected.
But it began for me 14 years ago in a Nigerian taxi in Lagos. I wanted to go to the housing estate reserved for Nigerian MPs and the taxi driver did not know where it was. Every few minutes he would stop the cab, switch off the engine, get out and ask a passerby for directions in English. His informants invariably replied in English, but after this routine had been repeated several times, it dawned on me that though questioner and informant were both speaking English, my taxi driver was not understanding the answers he was getting.
The reason was simple. Both sides were speaking a very garbled form of English. There was an additional complication in that their native languages were different—Nigeria has some 250 languages, I believe—and so the accents with which they spoke English were different.
Eventually I got to my destination, but that taxi ride taught me two things. The first was that English is a vital link language for those larger Commonwealth and ex-Commonwealth countries with considerable numbers or variations of native languages. In addition to Nigeria, there are, of course, India and Pakistan. More than that, in an era when language is often an emotive nationalist symbol, it is often only by using a neutral external language for internal communication that the language issue can be exorcised. The agreement to continue using English in India, for instance, calmed the anti-Hindi riots in the Tamil-speaking areas of the south in 1965.
The second lesson that I absorbed that day in Lagos was that English would be useless as a link language, or as anything else, if it was so badly learned and spoken that it was not functioning as a medium of communication.
For better or worse, Britain's two centuries as the world's greatest empire and America's emergence as the world's number one super-Power have made English a world language—to be blunt, the world language. It is the second language of educated people in most parts of the globe and in many cases, particularly in the developing world, it is their access route to modern science and technology—whether because the relevant literature has not yet been translated into their own languages, or because people wish to go to America, Britain, Canada, or Australia for further studies, or because, even if they go to Germany or Japan or perhaps another developing country for higher education, English will have to be their medium of communication. In March this year I visited an electronics factory in Tokyo where Pakistanis were being trained, and inevitably the language of instruction was English.
For us as native English speakers the world wide use of English is of enormous benefit. It enables us to trade throughout the world without having to put in the considerable efforts in language learning that are forced upon other countries. Frankly, I think that we have become too complacent about our increasingly monoglot culture and on some future occasion, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I shall seek to bring to the attention of the House the other side of the coin—the need for the British to acquire foreign languages far more widely and strenuously than we currently do. Nevertheless, we have a marked advantage in being native speakers of the second language of other nations.
There are also considerable political advantages accruing to us from the widespread use of English. It is the link language of the Commonwealth. The familiarity with which Commonwealth leaders use English is conducive to cohesion and, more importantly, it promotes a common pattern of thought, which makes understanding easier, even if it does not by any means always ensure agreement. Outside the Commonwealth the use of English as a normal language of diplomacy inevitably gives the native speaker an edge which may be unmeasurable but which is certainly also incalculable.
My contention is that both because it is advantageous to us and because we

helped make English a world language we have an interest and, indeed, a duty to help ensure that it is, as far as possible, spoken everywhere in mutually intelligible forms. A diversity of English accents—the American accent, the Australian accent, the Indian accent, as well as all those accents native to these isles—we can live with. However, it would be intolerable to permit the growth of mutually incomprehensible forms of English of the types that I heard that day in Lagos. The way to prevent that is to ensure that as many as possible native speakers of English train foreigners in the use of our language.
I am not too worried about Europeans in this context, because English teaching in most of our neighbour countries is highly developed and, anyway, they can afford to come over here for a year or two to work and study. What is far more important is the teaching of English in Third world countries, and that is why I am glad—even if he is not—that my hon. Friend with his responsibilities at the Overseas Development Ministry is to answer the debate.
When I first raised this matter in the House some time ago, the then Minister for Overseas Development, my right hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-East (Mr. Prentice), appeared to feel we were doing enough and that where we were not, our efforts were adequately supplemented by other English speaking countries. Since then I have been trying to put together the relevant statistics that would corroborate or disprove my right hon. Friend's answer. They have been difficult to collect but, as far as I can ascertain, the overseas effort in English language teaching—ELT—made by English-speaking Commonwealth countries is relatively slight. The only other country apparently concerned to put in a major effort is the United States, but even here, as a senior official of the American Agency for International Development wrote to me, information is "inadequate" and, as he added,
It may prove your point—the need for more British money in this area—more dramatically than you expected.
The figures seem to be as follows. AID is primarily concerned with training students who are due to come to or who have already arrived in the United States


for training in other fields, often technical. This is, of course, the elite of the developing world, but even so the latest figures show that AID is currently funding English language programmes in only six countries, with a total population of 213 million, a small fraction of the total population of the developing world, and that, even in this concentrated area, only some 630 students are being trained.
There are apparently no AID programmes for the 743 million people of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. In addition, in the fiscal year 1976, AID provided intensive English courses in America of on average 12 weeks each for 379 foreign students: in sum, a paltry total of just over 1,000 students.
Probably slightly lower down the educational ladder is the ELT effort put in by the United States Information Agency—USIA—and the Peace Corps. The USIA has 1,650 teachers abroad working at 55 centres of different types in 40 Third world countries with a total population of 580 million. There are 163,000 students, almost one half of whom are in Latin America and almost all the other half of whom are in the Middle East and South-East Asia. The total population of the 40 countries covered by this USIA effort is 580 million, but that figure is only four-fifths of the population of the four South Asian countries that I have already mentioned—India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka—where USIA, like AID, does not operate, presumably for political reasons. Finally, the Peace Corps has 757 volunteers teaching an unknown number of students in 25 countries, excluding again, I suspect, the four South Asian countries.
These figures clearly indicate that in four major Asian countries with a significant portion of the world's population and with intimate historic ties with Britain there is no American ELT effort on a governmental basis.
What, then, is the British ELT effort in general and in South Asia in particular? As the Minister will know, the 1970 ODM review document "Education in Developing Countries" laid considerable stress on ELT, largely for the same reasons as I have given myself, and stated in paragraph 82 that all the indications were that

the need, and demand, for assistance for English language teaching in Commonwealth and non-Commonwealth countries will remain an important growth point in UK aid".
It was expected that the volume of educational aid resources being put into ELT—apart from direct teaching of English in schools by volunteers—would expand substantially over the succeeding decade from the then current figure of £2 million per annum. What is the equivalent figure now at 1970 prices and what is it expected to be by 1980? Primary responsibility for the task of promoting the English language abroad on behalf of Her Majesty's Government, as the 1970 review document confirmed, rests with the British Council. I find it disappointing to learn from a Question answered by my hon. Friend on 17th June that the number of English teachers recruited by the British Council on behalf of the Overseas Development Ministry has declined by 57 per cent., from a peak of 108 in 1970, the year of the review document, to 46 last year. That is the lowest figure for nine years.
My hon. Friend's Department has been unable to tell me how many of the 1,427 people recruited last year by the ODM for service in education in the developing countries teach English. This indicates that the Department is not as acutely conscious of the need to emphasise English language teaching as I would wish. Moreover, last year's figure, whatever proportion of it is people teaching English full or part time, is the lowest figure for 10 years and represents a decline of over 40 per cent. from the high point in the late 1960s during the first spell as Minister of State for Overseas Development of my right hon. Friend the Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart). What has happened to her priorities? Has she or her immediate predecessor decided that ELT is no longer so important as the 1970 review document suggested? Surely it is not maintained, with the birth rate in most developing countries still soaring, that the job has been done.
From the last annual report of the British Council we see that it has 355 posts in the Third world concerned with ELT, though those points are not necessarily filled by teachers. Unfortunately, I have found it impossible to find in the


report how many Commonwealth English language students are taught or administered by these 355 personnel. Apparently there are over 90,000 students at British Government sponsored or assisted centres, institutes or Anglophile societies elsewhere in the Third world.
Is my hon. Friend able to give the up-to-date figure for the number of such students in Commonwealth countries? Fortunately, it is possible to delve somewhat deeper into British Government statistics with the help of the admirable area surveys that used to be produced by the Council's English Teaching Advisory Committee, later its English Teaching Information Centre.
As I made particular mention of Nigeria and South Asia I shall spend more time on them, but there are interesting points to be made about other countries. The May 1973 British Council survey of Nigeria confirmed my view of the extremely complicated language situation and stated:
Although not defined as such by the constitution, English is the de facto official language of serious literature and the mass media of some lower primary, most upper primary and all secondary and tertiary education.
But it added in what I suspect may have been an under-statement that the status of English as a medium of instruction was extremely variable and that ELT priorities were difficult to identify and establish.
British Council ELT staff were apparently deployed in advisory roles in the State bureaucracies and within teacher training colleges. There was no direct teaching done at primary or secondary level. Many Nigerian English language teachers apparently did not use the teachers' books, partly because they failed to understand them. Anyway, only a few classes had adequate supplies of books. Furthermore—this relates directly to my own experience in Lagos—the oral component of examinations was optional and insufficient attention was therefore paid to oral skills.
This gloomy picture of ELT was confirmed by the 1971-72 exam results. Of 5,009 entrants for the three stages of the Royal Society of Arts English language examination, only 643—less than 13 per cent.—passed, none of them at the highest stage. Of 34,968 entrants for the London

University GCE O-level in English language, only 4,155 passed—under 12 per cent.
I need hardly remind my hon. Friend that Nigeria is a country of somewhere between 60 million and 70 million people —estimates differ—and it is the richest and most powerful African country in the Commonwealth. In 1973 we had just 11 English language officers posted there. What is the figure now? What prevents the United Kingdom from putting far greater efforts into ELT there? Are there political difficulties? Is this not a case where Britain should not stand around waiting to be asked for help but should suggest a far-reaching programme of assistance in ELT?
Before I leave Africa let me briefly mention another rich and populous country, Zaire. For historic reasons French is the official language, but English is said to be increasing in importance and is theoretically the second language in the 1,000 secondary schools, but in practice there are not enough English teachers to staff every school. As of 1974 the British effort seemed to be confined to four staff at the English Language Centre in Kinshasa and one lecturer at a teacher training college. The British-aided centre was established in that halcyon year for ELT effort, 1970. Could we not now put more money and personnel into expanding it? If not, why not?
I turn now to South Asia. In India in late 1972 the British Council employed 30 ELT staff, roughly one per 15 million people. As the council itself admitted, per capita expenditure in India for all activities was the lowest of any country in which the council is represented. The distribution of council ELT staff was also uneven. In part this may be in response to Indian conditions where there is a wide knowledge of English and a considerable number of native teachers of English. The Indian Government aim for self-sufficiency in ELT and look for assistance only where no Indian resources exist. Thus British Council work is concentrated on higher education.
But no one who knows India well, certainly no one who has heard the complaints of Indian university dons, can doubt that the standard of English is declining in that country. I have no wish —and I am sure my hon. Friend the


Minister has none either—to attempt to push English down Indian throats in a neo-colonialist manner. But surely, as friends of long-standing, Her Majesty's Government can approach the Indian Government and ask whether they do not consider that the time is ripe for a review of ELT there with a view to increasing British assistance if it were found to be needed. Of course, the Indian Government might decline, but let us at least make the effort.
In the turbulent Pakistan of the early 1970s the position of British Council ELT was in a state of flux and all five ELT posts were withdrawn. Only two British contract teachers were left, one at Aitchison College, Lahore, one of my alma maters. What is the situation today and what efforts are being made to consult the Pakistan Government to restore an ELT programme?
Bangladesh emerged from the disruption of Pakistan in 1971 and the strong emphasis on Bengali as a symbol and engine of national identity and unity undermined ELT activities. What is the situation today? Have we approached the Bangladesh Government with a view to initiating ELT activities?
In the past Sri Lanka emphasised ELT and British Council activities there appear healthier than elsewhere in South Asia. Again, what is the up-to-date picture?
What clearly emerges from that brief survey is that in a very important and populous area of the world—almost 750 million people—the British ELT effort is totally inadequate for what is needed and that it is not the case, as the former Minister my right hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-East believed, that the gaps in the British programme are made up by the efforts of the Americans and others. Does the ODM now recognise that fact? If so, will it attempt, and how will it attempt, to alleviate the situation? I recognise, as I have said many times, that there may be political and other difficulties, but that is no excuse for sitting back and failing to take the initiative of approaching friendly Governments with offers of assistance in this area.
To illustrate what can be done I should just like to refer to the French Government's French language programme. As

my hon. Friend will know, the French have traditionally put far more emphasis on the teaching of their admirable language, even to the point of attempting to acculturalise the peoples of their former colonies. France's motives are not my concern this morning, only the effort that she, a country of roughly similar size and wealth, has put in to promoting French and the successes she has achieved in the face of the widespread predominance of English.
In 1975 there were over 24,000 French teachers of French or in French in the developing countries. Some of these taught in the 50 French lycées in the developing world, others at the 639 French institutes and centres. It is impossible to derive from official sources the total number of students at these institutions, but the figures that are available indicate that they were well over 100,000.
Early in the 1970s there were over 1,200 French personnel abroad involved in teacher training. It is always difficult to establish precise international comparisons, because countries often draw up their figures in different ways or are interested in different types of figures. Nevertheless, the French Foreign Ministry pamphlet "Relations Culturelles, Scientifiques et Techniques" 1974–75 quotes some interesting comparative figures from OECD.
In 1973 France spent $390 million on cultural and technical assistance to developing countries, almost 120 per cent. more than the British figure of $178 million. France then had 23,301 teachers abroad as compared with a mere 5,519 British and an even more measly 1,031 Americans. The French Foreign Ministry concedes that Britain and America do not have to put in as great an effort to ensure the usage of their language, thus admitting the greater rÔle of English as a world language.
There is, as the French recognise, an insatiable desire for training in English. Every year, as my hon. Friend must know, some 200,000 foreign students come to this country to learn English, and they comprise our sixth most profitable invisible export. Yet we are so careless of this bonus that we take little trouble to ensure that they do not become the victims of fly-by-night schools seeking only to cash in and not to instruct.
Indeed, so laggard are we at expanding the number of places at our excellent GLC schools that foreigners have to set up their own schools of English here. All that is, of course, a matter for the DES, but the point is that the 200,000 who come here are only the affluent tip of the iceberg. Overseas there are millions upon millions of young people and adults who wish to learn English.
Has my hon. Friend studied the experience of the private organisation, English International, which now has 50,000 students at 38 schools overseas? Does he realise that in Libya, where the British Council has no representative and where support for 18 contract lecturers at the universities was to be withdrawn in the mid-1970s, English International opened a school in 1965 and trains, I think, 800 students per year? Does my hon. Friend know that in Egypt, where the British Council sponsored 41 ELT teachers at all levels in 1974, English International has recently opened facilities employing 50 teachers?
As a nation we have sent 1,500 VSO teachers abroad to teach English, but should we not consider vastly expanding that figure by recruiting from the 20,000 unemployed teachers we have? I realise that there may be bureaucratic problems to do with pension rights and reemployment on return but surely it would be worth while the ODM and the DES getting together to see whether they can iron out these difficulties.
Will my hon. Friend undertake, after a well-earned holiday which I believe will start the moment this debate ends, to meet the Director General of English International and other leading figures in the field of English language teaching abroad with a view to exploring the needs and possibilities of much increased Government aid in this field? While the French are busily ensuring that at least some foreigners speak good French, we Anglophones seem to be fooled by the statistics of how many foreigners speak English into allowing concrete knowledge of our language to deteriorate around the world.
If we go on like this—I know that as a former teacher you, Mr. Speaker, will be interested—one day some people will speak English not spoken in England,

some will speak an English not spoken in America, and the rest will mouth an English not spoken anywhere.
That is the challenge and I hope that my hon. Friend and his right hon. Friend will measure up to it.

9.9 a.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry for Overseas Development (Mr. John Tomlinson): I am sure that the whole House when it has had the chance of reading my hon. Friend's speech will be grateful to him for raising this subject. It is one about which, I know, my hon. Friend feels deeply, and over the past two or three years he has pursued it diligently in the House.
I would say to him that the importance of the English language to Britain's links with other countries, and, indeed, to the enhancement of good relations between nations, is enormous.
Like my hon. Friend, I fully recognise the importance of English language teaching in a number of spheres of activity which he has covered in addition to our economic and social development with those countries. It goes without saying that the teaching of English is one subject on which Britain has a great deal to offer and, indeed, British expertise in this area is paramount in many parts of the world.
When I read the reply that my right hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-East (Mr. Prentice) made in 1975 I did not think that he was being quite as specific about the supportive rÔle of other English speaking countries as my hon. Friend suggested. He will recognise that there is some supplementary work being undertaken by other English-speaking countries and he gave a close recitation of the statistics. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-East was not trying to argue the case for its adequacy as a total complement to the British work as if it supplied the whole global demand.
The teaching of English is provided through a large number of channels in the public sector, by the Ministry for Overseas Development in the Third world and by the British Council, which is preeminent in English language teaching throughout the world. The Council acts as the Ministry's agents in administering


many of the teaching programmes and it runs others on its own account. It has, for example, about 400 English language specialists and teachers employed worldwide.
My hon. Friend asked a number of specific questions about costs, figures and programmes. So detailed were many of them that I shall not attempt to cover them, other than in the most general terms. I undertake that his speech shall receive the most careful consideration in the Department. I shall reply later to each of his arguments. That will give my hon. Friend more accurate information than if I attempted to pick out one or two of the issues.
Reference has been made to South Asia and the problems of English language teaching in such places as Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. I am aware of the problems. I shall be visiting South Asia soon and I shall take the opporunity to have discussions to see whether it is thought that the programmes are adequate or whether it is thought that we could be of greater assistance.
Generally speaking, we respond to requests for assistance from any developing country which attaches priority to ELT as a tool of development. In some countries the effect of Government policies—which of course we respect—for advancing the use of national and vernacular languages is to give English language a lower priority. In many other countries, for instance in Francophone Africa, the demand for ELT assistance is growing. In many developing countries of the Commonwealth English still remains the second language and the medium of government, administration and education.
The needs are changing. With the help given them in the past, the training institutions in many countries are increasingly able to supply classroom teachers and teacher trainers in English. In Kenya there has been a significant reduction in the number of English teachers teaching the English language. That is a tribute to the success of the English teachers, because they have been replaced by competent Kenyan teachers of the English language. The concentration on training the trainers results in locally trained

teachers being competent to teach the English language.

Mr. MacFarquhar: I accept that this is important and that one of the greatest jobs in ELT is to teach foreigners to teach English well, but my hon. Friend must recognise that there are different problems in countries such as Kenya as opposed to countries such as Nigeria or India. Therefore, Kenya should not be taken as a yardstick for the overall world success of the ELT programme.

Mr. Tomlinson: I am not suggesting that its success is due to one consideration, because there are other factors to be taken into account.
The trend is towards more specialised assistance from Britain. The new key English language teaching scheme, which is replacing the Aid to Commonwealth English scheme and the English as a Foreign Language scheme, will make up to 200 ODM funded posts available to developing countries. It comprises expanded programmes of technical cooperation under which we fill senior posts in ministries of education, institutions, departments, schools and faculties of education and in centres and departments of English at the tertiary level, curriculum development centres, teacher training colleges, training centres, educational broadcasting centres, and key posts in the production of ELT materials.
Although this scheme will form the core of British assistance, there are also over 2,000 teachers in developing countries many of whom teach English. We also assist with specialised training both in the country concerned and in Britain. With the British Council and the BBC we have produced a series of radio programmes, recordings and printed materials. Last but not least, we operate the book presentation programme and other forms of support for books and library development totalling £3 million each year. In the area of book presentation programmes and others we see a steady increase in volume year by year.
My hon. Friend sought to draw a comparison between our activity and activity in France. The situations in the respective countries are not necessarily comparable and I do not think that a statistical comparison is particularly valid. The number of French teachers abroad reflects a different professional level of


activity. We are concerned largely with high quality staff designed so far as possible to attain the maximum multiplier effect.

Mr. MacFarquhar: Is the Minister saying that the figure of teachers from the United Kingdom training abroad is larger than the figure of 1,200 which I cited for France?

Mr. Tomlinson: No. I am merely saying that the level of teaching is one of the factors to be considered. I shall expand on that subject when I write to my lion. Friend following this debate.
The other matter raised by my hon. Friend in an interesting speech related to the subject of surplus teachers. He asked whether the 20,000 unemployed teachers in this country could be of benefit. This is a matter I have examined in the Department to see whether there is any better method than we employ at present of matching requirements in developing countries to the availability of those surplus teachers. It is a fact that the surplus in the United Kingdom of teachers is not readily to be matched with the overseas demand, because such teachers are not always prepared to serve overseas.
We identify three groups in this respect, namely, married women teachers, those with less than the requisite experience, and those who do not match the requirements of the recipient country. These factors make it increasingly difficult to match some of our unemployed teachers with the demand from overseas. I shall look into each of the detailed points and give my hon. Friend as detailed a response as I can and as speedily as I can.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this subject and for giving such a clear idea of his views. There is certainly no diminution of interest in English language teaching in the Ministry for Overseas Development. There is a ready recognition that this subject is as important as it ever was, and we shall continue to examine all the points my hon. Friend made.

Mr. MacFarquhar: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his generous statement that he will answer my points in detail when the Department has had a

chance to consider them. I recognise that in the course of a debate of this kind, at the end of a Session and with no formal back-up or warning about the subject, it is impossible for Ministers to give on-the-spot, snap answers. That would be folly. But will my hon. Friend go on a little longer on one or two of the subjects I raised, because I think that one can at least give a general picture of what has been happening?
For example, my hon. Friend says that one of the problems over the employment of our surplus teachers, unemployed teachers, is that many of them are inexperienced. We know that many of them are coming out of the teacher training colleges and facing unemployment with great bitterness. But is it not the case that many of the teachers sent abroad by the British Council are Voluntary Service Overseas volunteers, who, by their very nature, are normally recruited not so much nowadays immediately after school but still at a very young age, and often with no experience in teaching certainly very little experience in England?
I should be most grateful if my hon. Friend could take up that point, and then, if he has a moment, I have another to raise with him.

Mr. Ronald Brown: Will my hon. Friend the Minister also realise that some of us have been here all night? Whilst I am very anxious that English should be taught abroad, I have matters affecting Hackney and Shoreditch to raise, too.

Mr. Tomlinson: I did not see my hon. Friend here during the all-night sitting. My hon. Friend the Member for Belper has raised a number of important points and is entitled, having waited all night, to a reply, just as I am sure that my hon. Friend will receive a reply when he raises his points.
There is a difference between the volunteer programme, which is largely run through the British Council, and the various supplementation schemes that the Department runs direct. We have about 2,500 British educational staff serving overseas under a number of supplementation arrangements. It was to that group that I was particularly referring when I spoke about the difficulties of matching the demands of the developing country


to the people who tend to be the core of the unemployed teachers. Young teachers straight out of training college, teachers over 50, those with less than five years' experience, and those who are reluctant to go abroad, create difficulties in matching supply and demand.

Mr. MacFarquhar: Is there not a great deal of idealism in young teachers who have just left training college? I am reliably informed that it is the bureaucratic difficulties—pensions and pension rights, re-employment on return —that deter many teachers rather than any reluctance to go beyond the Channel.

Mr. Tomlinson: I think that there is a combination of all those factors. With an increase in the number of unemployed teachers, worries about job security increase. Those in the right age group and with the right levels of skill and experience are the ones in demand, but are probably in post in the United Kingdom and more reluctant to leave their jobs, which would create vacancies for the unemployed teachers.
All these matters link together to create problems of which the Department is fully aware. I am not in a position to give more helpful answers about that today, but I can say that we engage in continuing discussions with the appropriate bodies.
My hon. Friend put a list of other specific points. They related to the various up-to-date figures, to points in relation to English language teaching in Nigeria, to the numbers involved and the cost, to problems in relation to Zaire, and to the figures for rates of failure in English language examinations in Nigeria. I shall look into them and write to my hon. Friend.

Mr. MacFarquhar: Will my hon. Friend undertake that after his visit to Southern Asia he will not only look at the activities of his Department in ELT, but will bring into his consultations organisations such as English International?

Mr. Tomlinson: I can give my hon. Friend that complete assurance. I am ready, willing and happy to engage in negotiations with anyone who wants to come to see me. My hon. Friend asked whether I would be prepared to meet the Director General of English International and I confirm that I would.
Increasing attention is being given to English for special purposes and to the whole question of English in teaching. We recognise the importance of the subject. The sort of issues that my hon. Friend raises are constantly under review by the Ministry for Overseas Development and the British Council, and we shall try to ensure that we continue to respond to requests within the framework of our aid strategy and our country programmes on technical co-operation.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for having raised this matter. I shall correspond with him about it and I look forward to a continuing dialogue with him in due course.

Mr. Speaker: Mr. William Hamilton …Mr. Christopher Price … Mr. Ronald Brown … Mr. Silvester … Sir George Young … Mr. Clemitson … Mr. Tebbit.

Orders of the Day — CIVIL AVIATION (BERMUDA AGREEMENT)

9.27 a.m.

Mr. Norman Tebbit: It might be for the convenience of the House, Mr. Speaker, if I took a little longer than usual to reach the heart of my remarks in order to give the Minister who is to reply to the debate, whom I know to be in the building, time to reach the Chamber. I am sure he will not take many minutes to get here. The Whip who is just leaving the Chamber will soon drag him in—

Mr. Michael Mates: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it reasonable for my hon. Friend the Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit) to address a completely empty Government Front Bench?

The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Ernest Armstrong): It is not empty. I am here.

Mr. Mates: Is that the Minister who is to reply to my hon. Friend's debate? Are we not making a farce of our proceedings? The departmental Minister is required to be here to give a serious reply to the debate, but, for reasons best known to himself, he may be tucking into his bacon and eggs. This will not do, Mr. Speaker. I ask for your assistance. I see that the Minister is now with us.

Mr. Speaker: I only wish that I were tucking into my own bacon and eggs.

Mr. Tebbit: Now we can get on to the menu of the day, Mr. Speaker. I am grateful to the Under-Secretary of State for Trade for having arrived so quickly when we had not expected to reach the debate until much later.
The whole renegotiation of the Bermuda Agreement springs from the Government's determination to implement the policies which were outlined in the February 1976 White Paper, "Future Civil Aviation Policy", Cmnd. 6400. The question arises of who wanted to choose the particular method of renegotiating the Bermuda Agreement as opposed to the more conventional way of negotiating within it. It appears that at some stage the Government decided that the only way they were likely to achieve their objectives would be to give notice of termination of the agreement and then, in the ensuing 12 months allowed for the negotiation of the new agreement, to try to attain their objectives.
There is good reason to doubt the wisdom of that decision, on two major grounds. The first is whether it was wise at any time to adopt that method of approach towards achieving a more equitable arrangement—indeed, a better arrangement—for the British carriers. Secondly, there is the matter of whether the time that the Government chose was the best time to renegotiate, if that was the way they were going to do it.
I shall deal with the first point a little later, but let me again put to the Minister some of the points that were put to him when we warned him some time ago of the consequences of choosing the particular time for renegotiation which he did. The time chosen was June of last year. It was know that there would be a presidential election in November and it was generally thought likely that that presidential election would lead to a change of President—indeed, a change of party in the Administration—in the United States. In the event the Government would be faced with what was essentially a lame duck Administration—perhaps that was not a bad idea, having one lame duck Administration talking to another—until January when the new President came into office.
So it worked out. For the first six months of the renegotiation it was extremely difficult for any negotiator on the American side to get down to the nuts and bolts of the agreement because he knew that the policy of the Government he was serving would change. He knew that the Government he was serving would change. So nothing serious could be done until January of this year.
Then the Americans, quite naturally, wanted to reassess their position in the new Administration and there were further delays, the breathless gallop towards the terminal date for the agreement, and the final farce in which it was held that midnight in the United States was the deadline and not midnight in the United Kingdom as everybody else had thought, in order to give a further five hours of negotiating time. During those five hours—that last breathless bit of the negotiation—it appears from all accounts that a number of important British interests were allowed to go by the board. They were allowed to go by the board because the American position at that stage was very much stronger than the British position, and both sides knew it.
The American negotiators made no secret of their willingness to allow the Bermuda Agreement to expire and for there to be no agreement and, therefore, no direct air services between the United States and the United Kingdom. It was clear that this would cause considerable harm to the airlines concerned in both countries, but what was also clear was that the traffic of the American carriers to Great Britain would be routed through Continental destinations, particularly through Paris. The traffic of the British carriers would, of course, be routed through. Canada. That was the intention.
What we know and what the Americans knew perfectly well is that once an agreement was reached and we returned to normal service the traffic which had been routed through Canada would very rapidly go straight back to the United States. No traffic would be lost thereby.
But some of the traffic which had been routed from the United States to Great Britain and had started to be routed from Paris, Amsterdam and other centres would pretty certainly continue to be routed through those terminals to Great


Britain, because much of the traffic from the United States to Great Britain is, in fact, European traffic in the broad context although for historical reasons it has tended to come via London and then go on to the Continent rather than the other way round. We should have lost a great part of that traffic and found that in the long term a significant amount of traffic would remain with Air France, KLM and others, via the Continent, and be lost to British Airways. It is clear, therefore, that at the end the Americans knew that they were in a strong position, and the British negotiators knew that we were in a weak position. That was when the damage was really done.
At the end of the day, what came out of the agreement? The Government entered the negotiation with clear objectives. They wished to secure single designation on all routes between Great Britain and the United States. They entered with a determination to end, or very seriously erode, the fifth freedom rights of American carriers to carry traffic on from the United Kingdom to other destinations in Europe. They had the objective of seeking new gateway cities in the United States and of achieving a form of capacity control to eliminate over-capacity on the North Atlantic route.
How did they fare? On single designation—a policy to which the Secretary of State is greatly attached, a policy, indeed, on which the White Paper itself puts great stress—the Government did not achieve what they set out to do. In fact, we now have double designation. We have double designation of American carriers from New York, and we have double designation of British carriers to New York in the form of British Airways and Laker. We have double designation of American carriers from Los Angeles and we have great doubt about which British carrier will take up the double designation to even that up. It is possible that British Caledonian could seek to use the licences which it has to operate to Los Angeles, but it is pretty clear from what the Secretary of State has said that that would not be the Government's policy and they would prevent it, unless, of course, British Caledonian followed the example of Laker Airways and took legal action over the matter. In addition, there is another gateway to

come. So the White Paper was contradicted on that score.
We then come to the question of the fifth freedom rights. The fifth freedom rights, as such, seem to have gone, and something called Note 1 has appeared instead in the new agreement. Note 1 is a very difficult note. It involves the continuance of what were the old fifth freedom rights of the American carriers but in a somewhat different form. Some of them have been completely eroded. Others are continuing. But one of the consequences of the last-minute rush of the negotiations is that neither side knew, after the agreement was initialled just before the deadline, what Note 1 meant. The Americans thought it meant one thing. The British thought it meant two different things, because some of the British delegation apparently thought it meant one thing and some thought it meant another—a typical example of the muddle one gets into in negotiating up against a deadline.
What is certain, however, is that American carriers still have a wide measure of freedom to carry traffic on through the United Kingdom to other destinations, traffic which one assumes ought to be carried by British carriers. The quid pro quo for that, which the Americans have given, is immensely less useful to the British carriers. After all, if we take a passenger into New York, there are not many places outside the United States to which he is likely to be going on. It is quite a long distance before he can get out of the United States. But if a passenger is brought into London there is an enormous number of other countries to which a passenger can go on. There is no reasonable quid pro quo and no equity in any arrangements which have been reached between the two sides.
It is difficult for the airlines concerned to understand and it is difficult for the experts to know what will be the effect of Note 1. It is not possible for me to stand here and say that Note 1 is 100 per cent. bad. We do not know, because nobody understands yet what the effects will be. What is certain, however, is that Note 1 has not achieved the Government's aim in their renegotiation.
With regard to the other objectives—the new gateway cities—certainly new gateway cities into the United States have


been achieved for British carriers, but where was the pressure for these new gateway cities? It was not only pressure on Her Majesty's Government. It was merely that British Airways and British Caledonian were seeking new gateway cities. But there was enormous pressure from the United States industry—the United States carriers on the United States Government to open those new gateway cities. It was a door which required not even a kick hut simply a very modest diplomatic touch, and it would have opened in any case. There was no difficulty about it. We were right with the American industry in wanting those new gateway cities.
I think the Minister could reasonably accept that the new gateways which had been achieved in an atmosphere of considerable bitterness and confusion in the industry are certainly no better than those which could have been achieved by conventional negotiation.
Then, the Government wanted to negotiate capacity control agreements. We already had capacity control agreements. They were in existence. They were working. They were not working particularly well. There is an argument that capacity agreements are a bad thing and should not work at all. That is not an argument that I altogether accept, but certainly there were capacity agreements and there is no reason to believe that, if it had been in the interests of the industry, the British Government, the American Government and travellers between the two countries, those capacity agreements could not have been strengthened. Indeed, it is curious that Article 11 of the new agreement, which refers to capacity control, is now headed "Fair competition" and not "Capacity control".
When we look at the annex to which Article 11 refers, we find that the methods by which capacity control will be operated are fortuitous, confused and, in the words of one American commentator, a bureaucratic dream of delight. Apart from anything else, the whole thing was based on action after the event and on a view of what might happen in the future, but there was no possibility, if one carrier or another, one nation or

another, dug its heels in, that capacity could really be controlled effectively. The whole of that annex is a mess.
The question we have to ask ourselves is: how good a deal has been achieved, not only in isolation but compared with what might have been achieved by negotiating inside the Bermuda Agreement and trying to achieve these objectives bit by bit? The effect on relationships between the United Kingdom and the United States has to be taken into account as well, and that was wholly negative.
I do not want to get on to ground that we might be covering later in the day on the subject of Concorde landing rights, but it seems astounding to me and to any other observer that the British Government, in the midst of seeking the good will of the American authorities in obtaining Concorde landing rights in New York, should choose to tear up the Bermuda Agreement, which covers all air services between the two countries, and to adopt an unpleasant attitude towards the Americans over that issue.

Mr. Robert Adley: I wonder whether my hon. Friend is going to cover this point in detail. It is clearly within the scope of the debate, and I am looking forward to hearing what he has to say on the subject.

Mr. Tebbit: My hon. Friend places me in a difficulty. I do not wish to presume that we shall not reach the subsequent debate later today. Therefore, perhaps it would be better if, not having prepared myself fully at this time for the matter of Concorde landing rights, my hon. Friend, who is very well versed in the matter, were to seek to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and to give us his views on the matter. But I can think of very few things that the Government could have done, short of declaring war on the United States, to do more harm to our chances of getting Concorde in.
The Under-Secretary shakes his head. I do not know what he thinks could have done more harm. I cannot think of anything. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Concorde is still not in, despite the negotiation of a new air services agreement.

The Under-Secretary of State for Trade (Mr. Clinton Davis): The hon. Gentleman is being very simplistic—uncharacteristically so when it comes to aviation matters, though not necessarily in other areas. The hon. Gentleman is fully aware, is he not, of the stance that the United States Government have taken in relation to the litigation currently being pursued in that country? He must be aware of the dispute about the authority of the Port of New York Authority in this matter. It is this rather than the United States Government's posture that goes to the heart of the matter.

Mr. Tebbit: I never thought that I should have to suggest that the Minister was naĩve, but clearly he is. On the surface, the situation in the United States is as he described it. But the situation in this country could be described by an outside observer as very straightforward in relation to the Post Office dispute. The law states "The letters shall be delivered. All you have to do is to implement the law." But we know that politics come into it and that the Government, for political reasons, are unwilling to implement the law of the land. Equally, we know that for obvious and clear political reasons no United States Administration will be very keen on using political muscle over this matter because there are not many votes for American politicians, so it seems or so they believe, for getting Concorde landing rights in New York. Therefore, we desperately need our friends there in this matter. The decision to tear up the Bermuda Agreement did not win us any more friends in high places in the American Administration who are concerned with civil aviation matters.
I may be being simplistic, but I think that the Minister is at least being naĩve in putting forward that argument. We are politicians, and we know that politics affect these matters.
I return to the matters that I was discussing. At the end of the renegotiations we must ask ourselves who wanted the agreement to be renegotiated in the first place. From whence did the pressure come? I have inquired around the industry and I have not found anybody who will tell me that he was lobbying the Minister to repudiate the Bermuda Agreement and renegotiate it. That is not just

the case now, when it is seen to be a disaster, but it was the case at the beginning. Neither the State airline, nor British Caledonian, nor Mr. Laker was constantly lobbying for this to be done.
The story is circulating that a pair of civil servants dreamed up the idea because one was approaching retirement age and he had never achieved anything exciting. I am sure that is not true, but it is typical of the explanations that the Americans have for this bizarre step.
If it is a mistake, which it is, how can we restore our position? That is very difficult. Over the next 10 years we shall have to do precisely what we could have done in easier circumstances before—to negotiate within the new agreement bit by bit for what we need.
The difficulty is compounded because the British Government have not negotiated in an even-handed manner. There are good reasons for believing that the Government were not fair towards British Caledonian in the negotiations. In fact, there are very good reasons for believing that in the last hours of the negotiations the British were under pressure to chuck something into the pot, and it was British Caledonian they tended to chuck in.
The main requirement of British Caledonian was the opening of its routes into the southern United States, particularly Houston. In the negotiations it was clear to those who keep their ears to the ground —and, as usual, the negotiations leaked like a sieve—that the United States was perfectly happy to allow British Caledonian to operate out of Houston. Naturally, the Americans wanted reciprocal rights. But in their considerable generosity they were willing to come to arrangements giving a favourable position to British Caledonian for some years. They were willing to hold back their carriers from operating through Houston. In the end we managed to keep that position to a certain extent, but not entirely. We knew perfectly well that if an American carrier operated straight away out of Dallas-Fort Worth, which is in the same traffic area, there would be a severe problem for British Caledonian.
We now have a position in which there will be an American carrier in direct competition with British Caledonian. Even


worse, at one stage the British Government had allowed a freight carrier to operate out of Houston to Britain, thus robbing British Caledonian of some £4 million to £7 million in revenue a year from freight. British Caledonian faces an extremely difficult situation.
British Caledonian had believed that the rights at Houston and Atlanta would be granted on a straightforward basis which might include provision for reciprocal United States services. The possibility of Fort Worth being introduced into the schedule did not arise until the last minutes of the negotiations. At that stage the Government gave it away and thereby damaged British Caledonian's interests. It is good that British Caledonian has the right to operate at all, but it could have been a great deal better. Now, the position of British Caledonian has been further eroded.
The House of Lords recently had a short debate on this matter, and I should like to draw the attention of the House to the most important point in that debate. I direct the Minister's attention to it. Lord Oram said:
The counter argument, to which noble Lords have referred, is that from the start British Caledonian will have to face indirect competition from United States airlines operating to London from Dallas/Fort Worth. This airport, as has been said, is only some 200 miles from Houston, and clearly, I agree to a considerable extent that they are serving the same market".—[Official Report, House of Lords, 22nd July 1977; Vol. 386, c. 601.]
I hope that the Minister will agree with that. Naturally, British Caledonian would have preferred not to have had to face competition from an American carrier at Dallas, and that is perfectly understandable. Unfortunately, it was just not negotiable that British Caledonian should be the only airline on either side to operate non-stop services between Texas and London for three years.
A little later in the Lords debate there appears another interesting proposition. The Command Paper of February 1976, which was approved by both Houses, put Dallas-Fort Worth into the sphere of interests of British Airways. We now come to the rub. It is becoming increasingly clear not only that it is the intention of the Government to leave British Caledonian in an exposed competitive position against the stronger American carriers

operating from their home base but that the British Government intend to put British Airways into Dallas as a second British carrier, in the same traffic area as that from which British Caledonian operates. British Airways will be competing with British Caledonian.
I can only suspect that the Under-Secretary is suffering from some severe stomach disorder or has found that he is extremely short of answers to my questions and has gone to find someone who can tell him what to say.

Mr. Adley: The Minister may have beeen slightly put off by my arrival in the Chamber because I wish to take part in the debate. I am sure that the Under-Secretary knows that.

Mr. Walter Harrison (Treasurer of Her Majesty's Household): rose—

Mr. Mates: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I heard the Deputy Chief Whip attempt to move the closure. If that was so, may I say that some of us have been here a long time trying to raise subjects and that it would be quite improper for the closure to be moved.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine): Order. The hon. Gentleman must have some psychic powers, because all I saw was the Deputy Chief Whip stand in his place.

Mr. Nicholas Ridley: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is the Government Deputy Chief Whip rising on a point of order, or has my hon. Friend the Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit) given way to him?

Mr. Tebbit: I have given way to the right hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Walter Harrison: I was posed a question and, as I was the only person on the Government Front Bench, I felt that it was only right that I should reply to it. That is what I was attempting to do.
I do not now have to reply because the Under-Secretary has returned and he can explain why he had to leave.

Mr. Clinton Davis: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The debate came on a little sooner than was expected and an urgent matter arose to which I


had to attend. I thought that the hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit) had reached a slight gap in his speech. I did not intend any discourtesy.

Mr. Tebbit: I am sure that the Minister did not intend any discourtesy. It is probably just as well that he left for a moment. Seeing the Deputy Chief Whip with the chance to say something rather than simply move a motion, it would have been less than generous of me not to give way to him.
The Government appear to be taking the attitude, consequent on renegotiation, that British Airways is to be allowed to go to Dallas-Fort Worth in direct competition not only with American carriers but with the British carrier, British Caledonian. This is extraordinary, because it seems to be in complete contradiction to the Government's White Paper. Paragraph 7 of the guidance in the White Paper says:
In the case of long-haul scheduled flight services, i.e. services from the United Kingdom to a point outside the areas to which paragraph 9 applies, the Authority"—
that is, the Civil Aviation Authority—
should not, except as provided for in paragraph 8 license more than one British airline to serve the same route.
The exceptions in paragraph 8 would not apply in this case. So the guidance to the CAA is clear and Lord Oram has confirmed that Houston to London and Dallas-Fort Worth to London services are drawing from precisely the same traffic catchment area. They are only 200 miles apart, and that is a very short distance in America.

Mr. Adley: May I reinforce that point'? Concorde has achieved an astonishing success and a high proportion of its traffic in Washington comes from hundreds of miles away. This is important in the light of the Bermuda Agreement and the situation in Texas.

Mr. Tebbit: My hon. Friend is right. This is the heart of the problem. Concorde draws from twice the catchment area of a conventional service. I do not know how one can maintain control, in commonsense terms, of two routes from the southern United States. Lord Oram said that the Command Paper of February 1976 put at least Dallas-Fort Worth into the sphere of influence of British

Airways. That is the first that I have heard about it. It is the first that British Caledonian has heard about it. It might even be the first that British Airways has heard about it.
If we study the White Paper, we find in Annex A that only the British Caledonian sphere of influence is described. It is described as a direct route to Atlanta and/or Houston in the United States of America. How that can be held to imply, let alone to state clearly, that British Airways has the right to operate into Dallas-Fort Worth is beyond the reasoning of anyone who knows anything about the geography of the United States. I suspect that Lord Oram had never been to the United States when he came out with this sort of language, but that is obviously now the Government's policy.
I turn to the question that was asked in the debate that took place on the White Paper. I asked the Minister:
At the end of this debate, however, we still seek assurance that the British Caledonian sphere of influence is now sufficiently large to ensure a margin of safety in the case of unforeseen circumstances.
I later said:
The Secretary of State has expressed his will that British Caledonian should succeed and his judgment that his guidelines will give it the means to do so. Our judgment is that he has cut the margins pretty fine—but he had to do so. However, we take him at his word that he now shares our objective, which is the continuing prosperity of an independent second-force scheduled flag carrier alongside the continuing prosperity of British Airways."—[Official Report, 26th February 1976; Vol. 906, c. 681.]
I never did get that assurance clearly from the Minister. I was never told what he meant. However, I was clear enough. I referred to the unforeseen circumstances that might operate against British Caledonian and, of course, we have already seen that happen. For example, in the sphere that was granted to British Caledonian in West Africa, the company has been forced to withdraw its services from Zaire, for precisely the sort of circumstances that I had in mind—namely, political and economic problems. Those circumstances have had nothing to do with the airline; they have related to the country concerned. As the House will know, British Caledonian has found itself unable to get out of Zaire the earnings from its operations in that country.

Mr. John H. Osborn: I frequently go to Brussels and I see the Air Zaire flight. I think that it is almost a daily flight. Would the negotiations have been more successful from a British point of view and fairer as against American strength if the airlines of Europe had had a better forum to come together to sort out their joint requirements? I very much value my hon. Friend's view on this issue now and subsequently. This is a matter that has been raised in the European Parliament.

Mr. Tebbit: That is one of the most far-reaching questions that we have to face in Europe. Given the present atmosphere within the Common Market it would have been counter-productive to the British interest to attempt to negotiate with the other European countries. I say that for two reasons. The first reason is that the arrangements that each country has with the United States are variable. Some countries have a better balance of advantage in their air traffic arrangements with the United States than Great Britain. They would have been very unwilling to see that advantage eroded, even in the interests of Europe as a whole.
There is no doubt whatsoever that they would have been bitterly opposed to giving this British Government anything. I shall not say "by way of assistance", but they would have been bitterly opposed to allowing the British Government to profit at their expense. At a time when the Cabinet is split on the issue of European elections and it is quite clear that the British Government will not be complying with their treaty obligations, and at a time when we are unwilling to revalue the green pound and are hence asking, the Germans, the French and others to subsidise our food to the tune of £300 million a year, it would have been very unwise of us to have gone forward in a joint negotiation with the United States with our European partners.
At some time in the future it may be possible to do that, but I do not see it happening in the very near future, and certainly not while we have in office a Government who are under the influence, if not under the control, of a party that is becoming more and more dedicated to taking us out of the Community in breach of our treaty obligations.
Therefore, whatever view one takes of the question whether we should be in or out, while the Labour Party is in the state in which it is, it is no time to ask for help from our friends in Europe.
I ask the Minister this question: is he of the opinion that the routes from London to Houston and from London to Dallas-Fort Worth are so different that although the terminal cities are only 200 miles apart, and although they have the same business catchment area, they constitute separate spheres of influence? If so, the British Caledonian sphere of influence is one of the smallest that one could imagine in this respect. It would be akin to declaring that Boston was a totally separate sphere to New York. In fact, it would be worse than that, because there is more distinction between Boston and New York than there is between Dallas and Houston.
Those are some of the matter that I raise with the hon. Gentleman. But there are one or two others.
First, as I mentioned, the White Paper, Cmnd. 6400, makes it perfectly plain that the Government's policy and, indeed, their guidance to the Civil Aviation Authority, is that the CAA should not license two British airlines in competition on the same route. The White Paper was approved by the House. We are now going in for double designation of British carriers.
Do the Government need to issue a revised White Paper? Do they feel that they need statutory authority to change their policy? Will they require new legislation to do any of these things? I see that the hon. Gentleman is nodding his head. That is a most useful admission from the Under-Secretary, because when we were originally given this White Paper, which changed the policy from that of the previous White Paper, the Government's position was that they did not require legislation to do it with the same act of approval, the White Paper was sufficient. We have now got a totally different story from the Government over these two matters. Then, they felt that legislation was not needed; now, they feel that legislation is needed.

Mr. Ridley: My hon. Friend is making rather a meal of this matter. Does he not remember that when the House was asked to take note of the White Paper


on public expenditure, the House voted not to take note of it, and it then became part of Government policy? If one can get away with that, I think that one can get away with what my hon. Friend is saying about this White Paper.

Mr. Tebbit: I would have thought it would have been generally accepted that if one has a White Paper enunciating policy which has been approved by the House the Government would have come forward with legislation or a new White Paper or something.

Mr. Ian Gow: Is not my hon. Friend overlooking page 4 of the letter of 15th December 1976 sent by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to Dr. Johannes Witteveen? That letter, as my hon. Friend knows, was placed in the Library on the same day as the Chancellor made his statement to the House about the loan made to the Government by the IMF. I quote only one sentence which is germane to my hon. Friend's argument:
For this purpose,"—
this is the Chancellor writing to the Managing Director of the IMF—
an essential element of the Government's strategy will be a continuing and substantial reduction over the next few years in the share of resources required for the public sector".
My hon. Friend may have overlooked that and he ought to pay more attention to that document, which was placed in the Library by the Chancellor as long ago as 15th December last year.

Mr. Tebbit: Mr. Tebbit My hon. Friend is indeed right. I confess my sin immediately, that I have not paid sufficient attention to that letter. But my sin is not half as great as that of the Chancellor, who does not seem to be paying very much attention to it either.

I would presume that the Chancellor would have posted it on the bathroom wall so that every time he had a bath he could read it and ruminate upon it. But that, as my hon. Friend implies, suggests that it should be rather more the duty of British Caledonian to provide these services than of the State carrier.

To be fair about these matters—and one wishes to be fair—I should say that British Airways is far from the worst of the nationalised industries in taking public

finance from the Government. Indeed, it is doing extremely well in raising its own money in its own way.

Mr. Gow: Before my hon. Friend leaves that point, it is only right to say that it is not only my hon. Friend who is monitoring very carefully the undertakings given by the Chancellor to Dr. Witteveen—because one of the unseen attenders at our debates in Dr. Johannes Witteveen. Is my hon. Friend aware how closely Dr. Witteveen follows our proceedings and how much attention he will be paying to the courageous speech that is being made by my hon. Friend? It is that letter of 15th December 1976 and the monitoring of it, not only by the IMF but by my hon. Friend, that I think will be able to gain a very high appointment with the IMF for my hon. Friend in 30 or 40 years' time, when he has given up this place.

Mr. Tebbit: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I must confess that I did not until this moment have that prickly feeling that I was being watched by unseen persons.

Sir Bernard Braine: Apart from unseen witnesses, there must be nearly 55 million people who, if they knew what my hon. Friend was saying to the House, would give loud praise, if for no other reason than that my hon. Friend is going to the heart of the way in which this Government waste British resources and injure British interests.

Mr. Tebbit: As always, my hon. Friend puts it quite beautifully in a nutshell. In the aura of the noted Dr. Witteveen, who is keeping an eye upon us in the kindly manner in which he operates in the IMF, I shall come to a conclusion. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] I know that my hon. Friends are fascinated by my speech.

Mr. Nicholas Fairbairn: Coming a little closer to home than Dr. Witteveen, I have the misfortune to have to travel between London and Edinburgh once a week. I have a choice between going by nationalised shuttle service or by British Caledonian. That choice is essentially one between travelling freight and travelling passenger. If one goes by British Caledonian one is looked after, fed and watered, one can sit where one likes, and one is not crowded, but if one goes by


British Airways one is not fed or watered, and the same number of crew wake one up to ask for a ticket which one has bought beforehand.

Mr. Patrick Cormack: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for my hon. Friend to malign the stewards of British Airways in that revolting way?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: That is nothing to do with the Chair.

Mr. Tebbit: I hope that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Mr. Fair-bairn) will not unduly criticise British Airways. It is quite the best of our nationalised industries. When we find a nationalised industry that is running as well as British Airways we should say so and support the management that is trying to make it better, and the staff who work at making it as good as it is. [Interruption.] My hon. Friends should relax. It is wrong to criticise British Airways in that way. I appreciate what my hon. and learned Friend says about the shuttle service. I do not find it particularly attractive. I hope that he will not let this spill over into generalised and unjustified criticism.

Mr. Fairbairn: rose—

Hon. Members: Withdraw.

Mr. Fairbairn: I have said nothing that I would want to withdraw. I repeat what I said. The shuttle service is the most nauseating invention, and only a most insensitive organisation such as British Airways could operate it.

Mr. Tebbit: We might leave the matter there. I shall conclude my speech.

Mr. Gow: Most uncharacteristically, my hon. Friend has in mind to conclude his speech before he has completed his argument. It would not be right for us to allow my hon. Friend to sit down at this stage when there are so many further arguments that could, and I venture to say should, be advanced. For example, I have the complete text of the letter of 15th December 1976 from the Chancellor of the Exchequer to Dr. Witteveen. Many of these arguments are not simply germane; they are central to the whole

of my hon. Friend's case, and the letter should be handed down to him.

Mr. Nigel Lawson: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it not the case that an hon. Member may speak only once on the Second Reading of the Consolidated Fund Bill and that if my hon. Friend has any point he wishes to make on any of the subsequent subjects listed in this debate he may do so in his speech, otherwise he will not have a subsequent chance to do so? Therefore, is this not the only opportunity he will have to address the House on some very interesting matters?

Mr. Gow: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it not the case that it is in order for an hon. Member to make more than one speech on the Second Reading of this Bill, provided that he has the leave of the House? Who can doubt that leave to address us a second, third or even twenty-third time would be granted to my hon. Friend? If that should be the case, perhaps the important points raised could be canvassed.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: It is correct that on the Consolidated Fund Bill an hon. Gentleman should address the House only once. It is also important that he should keep his remarks relevant to the matter under discussion.

Mr. Tebbit: As I was saying—

Mr. Ridley: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. What is the reason for an hon. Member having to keep his remarks relevant? Surely he may discuss any matter that arises on the Consolidated Fund Bill. We are discussing the Second Reading of a Bill that covers the whole ambit of Government activity. It would be helpful to the House if you would explain in what way an hon. Member would be circumscribed in talking about any matter that comes to his mind at this time.

Mr. Tebbit: I intend to remain very much closer to the point I raised originally and not to be tempted by my hon. Friends into going too far. I shall keep the letter which purports to be from Dr. Witteveen in some convenient place, although it worries me that the last page is torn and that the signature is missing.


I hope that it is genuine and I hope that my hon. Friend did not get it from a reporter on the Daily Mail.

Mr. Cormack: It could be MI5.

Mr. Tebbit: It could, indeed, be MI5. I prefer to get on with the speech I am making and deal with the issue of the Bermuda Agreement instead of being sidetracked.
The point I wish to make is quite clear. During the negotiations on the Bermuda Air Service Agreement it has become apparent that the Government have changed their overall policy towards the spheres of influence of British Caledonian and to British Airways—

Mr. Walter Harrison: rose—

Mr. Cormack: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Walter Harrison: Mr. Walter Harrison rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.

Question put, That the Question be now put:—

The House proceeded to a Division—

Mr. Cormack (seated and covered): On a point of order, Mr. Speaker—

Mr. Speaker: I call the hon. Member for Staffordshire, South-West (Mr. Cormack), if I recognise him correctly.

Mr. Cormack (seated and covered): Is there any precedent for the Government seeking to curtail an important debate in this manner when my hon. Friend the Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit) has not finished a speech, which was entirely pertinent, relevant, and captivating to his audience?

Sir Bernard Braine (seated and covered): Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. There is a valid argument that there is surely no precedent for the Government to act as they have before the Minister, who has been in attendance waiting to speak, has had the opportunity to address the House. While none of us would deny that in certain extreme circumstances the Government have the right to curtail discussion—much as Back

Bench Members dislike it—is it not gravely discourteous and an affront to the House to do so before the Minister who has been in attendance and who has been palpably ready to address us has had the opportunity so to do?

Mr. Adley (seated and covered): I wish to raise a point of order, Mr. Speaker, by no means a frivolous one. You will be aware of the importance of the Bermuda Agreement, and some hon. Members are most anxious to speak on this issue. It is not just a question of discourtesy. The Government Deputy Chief Whip appears to have some motive in mind for curtailing this debate not only before the Minister has spoken but before other hon. Members, who have contributions to make which may be critical of the Government's attitude to some aspects of the Bermuda Agreement, have also had the chance to speak.

Mr. George Cunningham: rose—

Mr. Tebbit (seated and covered): Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I believe that it is customary for hon. Members not to stand when points of order are raised after a Division has been called. The point which may perhaps have been missed is that the Bermuda Air Services Agreement is in fact a treaty—

Mr. George Cunningham: This is the House of Commons at work!

Mr. Adley: Name him. [Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. I cannot hear the point of order.

Mr. Tebbit (seated and covered): The Bermuda Air Services Agreement is in fact a treaty between the United Kingdom and the United States. The Government Deputy Chief Whip has chosen to move the closure, which prevents discussion of that treaty. I suggest that perhaps this should not be so.

Mr. Speaker: I fear that the House will decide whether the Question should be put. I can only accept the closure, or otherwise, using my judgment. I accepted the closure and now the House will have to decide.

The House divided: Ayes 103, Noes 32.

Division No. 232]
AYES
[10.29 a.m.


Armstrong, Ernest
Garrett, W. E. (Wallsend)
Orme, Rt Hon Stanley


Ashley, Jack
George, Bruce
Owen, Rt Hon Dr David


Atkinson, Norman
Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife)
Pendry, Tom


Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)
Harper, Joseph
Phipps, Dr Colin


Barnett, Rt Hon Joel (Heywood)
Harrison, Rt Hon Walter
Price, C. (Lewisham W)


Bates, Alf
Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy
Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds S)


Benn, Rt Hon Anthony Wedgwood
Hayman, Mrs Helene
Richardson, Miss Jo


Blenkinsop, Arthur
Healey, Rt Hon Denis
Rodgers, Rt Hon William (Stockton)


Booth, Rt Hon Albert
Hooley, Frank
Roper, John


Bottomley, Rt Hon Arthur
Horam, John
Shaw, Arnold (Ilford South)


Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W)
Howells, Geraint (Cardigan)
Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert


Brown, Ronald (Hackney S)
Huckfield, Les
Shore, Rt Hon Peter


Butler, Mrs Joyce (Wood Green)
Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)
Silkin, Rt Hon John (Deptford)


Callaghan, Rt Hon J. (Cardiff SE)
Jackson, Miss Margaret (Lincoln)
Silverman, Julius


Campbell, Ian
Janner, Greville
Spearing, Nigel


Carmichael, Neil
Jeger, Mrs Lena
Stallard, A. W.


Carter-Jones, Lewis
Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)
Steel, Rt Hon David


Clemitson, Ivor
John, Brynmor
Stewart, Rt Hon M. (Fulham)


Cocks, Rt Hon Michael (Bristol S)
Judd, Frank
Strauss, Rt Hon G. R.


Colquhoun, Ms Maureen
Kaufman, Gerald
Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley


Corbett, Robin
Latham, Arthur (Paddington)
Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton W)


Cox, Thomas (Tooting)
Leadbitter, Ted
Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)


Cunningham, G. (Islington S)
Lever, Rt Hon Harold
Tuck, Raphael


Davidson, Arthur
Lipton, Marcus
Walker, Terry (Kingswood)


Davis, Clinton (Hackney C)
Luard, Evan
Ward, Michael


Deakins, Eric
MacFarquhar, Roderick
Watt, Hamish


Dell, Rt Hon Edmund
McNamara, Kevin
Willey, Rt Hon Frederick


Dormand, J. D.
Mason, Rt Hon Roy
Williams, Alan Lee (Hornch'ch)


Douglas-Mann, Bruce
Meacher, Michael
Williams, Rt Hon Shirley (Hertford)


Eadle, Alex
Mikardo, Ian
Williams, Sir Thomas (Warrington)


Ellis, John (Brigg &amp; Scun)
Millan, Rt Hon Bruce
Wilson, Rt Hon Sir Harold (Huyton)


English, Michael
Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride)
Wrigglesworth, Ian


Ennals, David
Miller, Mrs Millie (Ilford N)



Foot, Rt Hon Michael
Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Fowler, Gerald (The Wrekin)
Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)
Mr. Peter Snape and


Fraser, John (Lambeth, N'w'd)
Moyle, Roland
Mr. Ted Graham.


Freeson, Reginald






NOES


Adley, Robert
Gardner, Edward (S Fylde)
Rhodes James, R.


Alison, Michael
Gow, Ian (Eastbourne)
Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon


Atkins, Rt Hon H. (Spelthorne)
Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)
Ridley, Hon Nicholas


Biggs-Davison, John
MacGregor, John
Sims, Roger


Bottomley, Peter
Mates, Michael
Tebbit, Norman


Braine, Sir Bernard
Morgan-Giles, Rear-Admiral
Townsend, Cyril D.


Clark, Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)
Neave, Airey
Weatherill, Bernard


Cormack, Patrick
Neubert, Michael



Drayson, Burnaby
Newton, Tony
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Durant, Tony
Osborn, John
Mr. Nigel Lawson and


Eyre, Reginald
Prior, Rt Hon James
Mr. Carol Mather.


Fairbairn, Nicholas
Rees, Peter (Dover &amp; Deal)

Question accordingly agreed to.

Mr. Speaker: The Question is, That the Bill—

Mr. Cormack: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker—

Mr. Speaker: I cannot take points of order while I am putting the Question.

Question put, That the Bill be now read a Second time:—

The House divided: Ayes 103, Noes 21.

Division No. 233]
AYES
[10.40 a.m.


Armstrong, Ernest
Carter-Jones, Lewis
Eadle, Alex


Ashley, Jack
Clemitson, Ivor
Ellis, John (Brigg &amp; Scun)


Atkinson, Norman
Cocks, Rt Hon Michael (Bristol S)
English, Michael


Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)
Colquhoun, Ms Maureen
Ennals, David


Barnett, Rt Hon Joel (Heywood)
Corbett, Robin
Foot, Rt Hon Michael


Bates, Alf
Cox, Thomas (Tooting)
Fraser, John (Lambeth, (N'w'd)


Benn, Rt Hon Anthony Wedgwood
Cunningham, G. (Islington S)
Freeson, Reginald


Booth, Rt Hon Albert
Davidson, Arthur
Garrett, W. E. (Wallsend)


Bottomley, Rt Hon Arthur
Davies, Bryan (Enfield N)
George, Bruce


Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W)
Davis, Clinton (Hackney C)
Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife)


Brown, Ronald (Hackney S)
Deakins, Eric
Harper, Joseph


Butler, Mrs Joyce (Wood Green)
Dell, Rt Hon Edmund
Harrison, Rt Hon Walter


Callaghan Rt Hon J. (Cardiff SE)
Dormand, J. D.
Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy


Carmichael, Neil
Douglas-Mann, Bruce
Hayman, Mrs Helene




Healey, Rt Hon Denis
Mason, Rt Hon Roy
Silkin, Rt Hon John (Deptford)


Hooley, Frank
Meacher, Michael
Silverman, Julius


Hooson, Emlyn
Mellish, Rt Hon Robert
Spearing, Nigel


Horam, John
Mikardo, Ian
Stallard, A. W.


Huckfield, Les
Millan, Rt Hon Bruce
Steel, Rt Hon David


Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)
Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride)
Stewart, Rt Hon M. (Fulham)


Jackson, Miss Margaret (Lincoln)
Miller, Mrs Millie (Ilford N)
Strauss, Rt Hon G. R.


Janner, Greville
Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)
Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley


Jay, Rt Hon Douglas
Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)
Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton W)


Jeger, Mrs Lena
Moyle, Roland
Tuck, Raphael


Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)
Orme, Rt Hon Stanley
Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.


John, Brynmor
Owen, Rt Hon Dr David
Walker, Terry (Kingswood)


Judd, Frank
Pendry, Tom
Ward, Michael


Kaufman, Gerald
Price, C. (Lewisham W)
Watt, Hamish


Latham, Arthur (Paddington)
Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds S)
Williams, Rt Hon Shirley (Hertford)


Leadbitter, Ted
Richardson, Miss Jo
Wilson, Rt Hon Sir Harold (Huyton)


Lever, Rt Hon Harold
Rodgers, Rt Hon William (Stockton)
Wrigglesworth, Ian


Lipton, Marcus
Roper, John



Luard, Evan
Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Lyon, Alexander (York)
Shaw, Arnold (Ilford South)
Mr. Peter Snape and


MacFarquhar, Roderick
Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert
Mr. Ted Graham.


McNamara, Kevin
Shore, Rt Hon Peter





NOES


Adley, Robert
MacGregor, John
Ridley, Hon Nicholas


Bottomley, Peter
Mates, Michael
Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)


Braine, Sir Bernard
Moate, Roger
Sims, Roger


Clark, Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)
Morgan-Giles, Rear-Admiral
Townsend, Cyril D.


Durant, Tony
Osborn, John



Eyre, Reginald
Rees, Peter (Dover &amp; Deal)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Fairbairn, Nicholas
Rees-Davies, W. R.
Mr. Ian Gow and


Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)
Rhodes James, R.
Mr. Norman Tebbit.


Hunt, David (Wirral)

Question accordingly agreed to.

Bill read a Second time.

Mr. Cormack: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I seek your guidance on behalf of myself and the whole House? I was shattered this morning when I listened to the radio—as I am sure many other colleagues were—to hear the extraordinary allegations of the previous occupant of the highest office of State. For greater accuracy I have procured a copy of the report in question and it certainly raises some matters of high importance.
It would appear that we have lost Friday's business. I had intended to table a Private Notice Question asking the Prime Minister whether he would make a comment on this quite extraordinary report. Since we have now lost Friday's business, it would seem, I cannot do that. I have observed, and I am sure that you have, Mr. Speaker, that the Prime Minister has been present this morning. I wonder whether it would be possible for him to make a statement to the House on this matter, because it is quite unthinkable that we should adjourn for the long recess without having this point clarified and without having the opportunity to question the present holder of the highest office of State.

Mr. Speaker: I did not hear the radio. I was in the Chamber. That was for the

eight o'clock news. I have had no request for a statement and therefore I must follow the business of the day.

Mr. Raphael Tuck: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I rise to ask whether anything can be done to amend the procedure of this House to stop certain Members of the Opposition from obstructing the business of this House by acting like overgrown schoolboys, as they have been doing this morning—and I refer particularly to the hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit).

Mr. Speaker: If the House wishes to change its rules that is a matter for the House and not for me.

Mr. Ridley: Further to that point of order—not the frivolous one but that raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire, South-West (Mr. Cormack). The House might well wish to debate the events which have been revealed in this morning's Press and it would have been possible for us to apply to you for a debate under the Standing Order No. 9 procedure had we proceeded to Friday's business. As that now seems, on balance, to be improbable I wonder by what procedure—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is well versed in our affairs and


knows that the Standing Order No. 9 procedure does not apply on a Friday.

Mr. Ridley: It is Thursday.

Mr. Speaker: But the hon. Member said that he would have raised the matter on Friday. We ought now to get on to the remaining business. We have already lost Friday's business.

Mr. Adley: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I am raising this point of order directly for you. It relates to a document from the Committee of Privileges, on a matter which you will recall I raised with you originally and which you ruled should be referred to the Committee of Privileges. I refer to the question of the NUPE resolution. The House accepted your recommendation that the matter be referred to the Committee of Privileges. It seemed to be directly relevant to the Select Committee's Report which we discussed earlier this week. I have been awaiting the arrival of this report from the Committee and hoping to receive it earlier this week before our debate on the report of the Select Committee. Late yesterday I received in my post, on the board, this small report from the Committee of Privileges, with a compliments slip from one of the Officers of the House.
I submit that the contents of this report are extremely relevant to the debate that we had earlier this week. Yet, although the report is dated 19th July, I received it only yesterday. My question is: why was this report from the Committee of Privileges, which so many hon. Members would have liked to have earlier in the week and which was printed on 19th July, apparently withheld and presented at the Vote Office only yesterday?

Mr. Speaker: I have allowed the hon. Member full scope to make his point of order as an act of courtesy on the last day before the recess, if we do eventually go down. However, I must say that it is quite disorderly to interrupt the business for points of order that are not related to that business.
Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House; immediately considered in Committee pursuant to the Order of the House this day.

[Mr. BRYANT GODMAN IRVINE in the Chair]

Orders of the Day — Clause 1

ISSUE OUT OF THE CONSOLIDATED FUND FOR THE YEAR ENDING 31ST MARCH 1978

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

10.55 a.m.

Sir Bernard Braine: On a point of order, Mr. Godman Irvine. I know that it is unusual for there to be any debate at all during the Committee stage of the Consolidated Fund Bill. One reason for this is that the rules of order are, by precedent, drawn very tightly indeed. It is for that reason that I ask for your guidance. I understand that it is permissible to move and to debate amendments on the Committee stage of this Bill, the object of which is to ensure the application of the grants made by Parliament at an earlier stage in our proceedings, although, of course, such debate and such amendments must be restricted to the principle of appropriation.
I have consulted the precedents and I find that in the debate on the Committee stage of the Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) Bill on 21st December 1888 the Chairman ruled that it was permissible for an hon. Member to discuss whether
it is expedient that the Supply which has already been granted by the House should or should not be appropriated".
A little later, the same Chairman said that it was in order—

The Second Deputy Chairman: Order. We are dealing with Clause 1. I think that the hon. Gentleman has moved on to Clause 2.

Sir B. Braine: With great respect, Mr. Godman Irvine, I am raising a point of order. So that I may decide whether to catch your eye on Clause 1, or Clause 2, or on the schedules to the Bill, it is necessary for me to explain what my point of order is. I hope that you will permit me to do so. I will be very brief.
The Chairman later said that it was in order to
adduce to the Committee any reasons for not appropriating Supply in this way, and for not binding the Treasury by law to spend the money in the way provided by the Bill".


Although I can think of many reasons why the whole of the £22,000 million involved should not be issued out of the Consolidated Fund Bill for the year ending 31st March 1978, Mr. Godman Irvine, I recognise that you would quickly call me to order on that point because the House has already expressed its will about that sum of money. But I am concerned with a valid point in regard to a particular appropriation listed in Schedule (B), and my point of order simply is this: as we may take some time to get through Clauses 1 and 2, would it be in order, provided I gave you notice in advance, for you to accept a manuscript amendment to enable me to raise my point on Schedule (B)?

The Second Deputy Chairman: It may be of assistance to the hon. Gentleman if I mention that
the Committee on the Consolidated Fund Bill is merely the machinery for carrying out the decisions of the House in Committee of Supply and corresponds exactly to the Votes then passed. Of course, there are proper occasions on which this question can be raised"— [Official Report, 23rd September 1915; Vol. LXXIV, c. 586.]
The hon. Gentleman will see that statement in the Official Report of 23rd September 1915.
Amendments cannot he moved to clauses or schedules to effect the omission or reduction of the amount of a grant, or of the appropriations in aid of it, or an alteration in the destination of a grant…".
That the hon. Gentleman will find set out on page 747 of "Erskine May."

Sir B. Braine: I accept everything that you have said, Mr. Godman Irvine, but the point I wish to raise is a different one. It concerns whether certain moneys have been taken into the Consolidated Fund in connection with a particular matter—which perhaps you will allow me to develop now—and then to be issued out of it. My suspicion is that in an important matter of policy of external affairs concerning a dependency of this country the Government have fallen short of their obligations. I can raise the matter only by turning to a particular appropriation under a particulate vote. All I am asking you is whether I could move an amendment at a suitable opportunity, which I suggest is when we come to Schedule (B), in order that the point can be deployed.

The Second Deputy Chairman: If the hon. Gentleman will be good enough to look at page 746 of "Erskine May", he will see that it says:
On the clauses dealing with the issue of money from the Consolidated Fund, subjects involving expenditure cannot be discussed.

Sir B. Braine: I have in my hand the relevant extract from "Erskine May". I am concerned not with the details of expenditure but with the way in which the money is appropriated and spent. You will find, Mr. Godman Irvine, by consulting "Erskine May" further, that it is permissible to debate this. That being so, I must ask once again whether I can put in a manuscript amendment at the appropriate stage in order that the point can be discussed.

The Second Deputy Chairman: I would not be prepared to accept an amendment in those terms.

Mr. Ian Gow: Further to that point of order, Mr. Godman Irvine. You referred my hon. Friend the Member for Essex, South-East (Sir B. Braine) to page 746 of "Erskine May." I wonder whether I may invite your attention to page 747, from which I read:
debate and amendment must be restricted to the principle of appropriation.
I submit that it is perfectly clear from that statement that not only is debate on the Committee stage of the Consolidated Fund Bill in order but amendments are in order as well, provided, of course, that those amendments are restricted to the principle of appropriation.

The Second Deputy Chairman: I referred the hon. Member for Essex, South-East (Sir B. Braine) to page 747 as well. That was under consideration. What the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Gow) has not done is look at the ruling of 1888, when the Deputy Chairman, Sir John Gorst, said:
Supply has been already voted. The amount has been already determined. The only question for this Committee is, whether the Treasury shall be compelled by law to appropriate the money which comes into the hands in a certain way.
That was on 21st December 1888, and is reported in Hansard at Column 979. Sir John Gorst later said:
… the question in this case is whether, by law, the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury


are or are not to be bound to apply money already voted by Parliament in the way in which Parliament orders.
That is reported in c. 982 of Hansard of 21st December 1888.

Mr. Gow: I fully appreciate that, Mr. Godman Irvine, but since the nineteenth edition of "Erskine May" was published last year, it is difficult to follow how the ruling to which you have just referred can supersede the very words that I read out from page 747 of "Erskine May." If the current edition of "Erskine May" says, as it does, that
debate and amendment must be restricted to the principle of appropriation
surely that must be final, binding and ultimate guidance in this matter, unless, since the publication of the nineteenth edition, there has been a ruling by the Chairman or Mr. Speaker which is in conflict with page 747. In the absence of any ruling by Mr. Speaker or by the Chairman of Ways and Means varying page 747, it seems as though that must be the definitive practice of the Committee, and I ask you to rule on two specific submissions.
The first submission is that it is in order to have a debate restricted to the principle of appropriation on each clause and on each schedule to the Bill. The second is that it is in order to submit amendments to you, provided. of course, that they are restricted to the principle of appropriation.

The Second Deputy Chairman: The hon. Gentleman has quoted from page 747. On that page it says precisely in the terms he has quoted to me:
debate and amendment must be restricted to the principle of appropriation",
and if he takes a look at the footnote on the same page he will find that the basis of it is the ruling by Sir John Gorst to which I have referred.

Mr. Norman Tebbit: On a point of order, Mr. Godman Irvine—

Mr. Raphael Tuck: Overgrown schoolboy No. 1.

Mr. Tebbit: I must say that if I had the choice of being an overgrown schoolboy or a senile old man, I would prefer the former. There is at least opportunity

to improve, whereas those who are already senile have seen it all go by.
You have already ruled on two points, Mr. Godman Irvine. I wish, first, to refer to the more general of those points and then to the more particular matter that was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Gow).
On the more general point, you observed that it was—I think these were your words—"not normal" that there should be a debate at this stage of the Bill. May I refer you, Mr. Godman Irvine, to certain volumes of Hansard—although not exclusively to that source —namely, those reporting the business of the House on 26th March 1913, on 20th February 1961, on 22nd February 1961 and on 16th February 1971?
As you will see, Mr. Godman Irvine, those are the more recent occasions on which there has been debate in Committee on the Bill—and debate at some length, if I may say so. I do not know whether those occasions would fall under the heading of what you would regard as abnormal, but certainly, whether normal or abnormal, those occasions took place, and, as you will readily recollect, some of the debates were fairly lengthy.
Clearly, they could not have been disorderly debates since the Chair would not have so allowed. Moreover, the points raised in those debates, or parallel points, could, therefore, again be raised in the debate that we have today.
You will recollect, Mr. Godman Irvine, that during the proceedings in 1961 it was discovered by a very alert member of the then Opposition—I am not entirely sure, without checking further, but I think that it was the late Mr. Gaitskell or Mr. Diamond, as he then was—

Mr. Patrick Cormack: Not overgrown schoolboys by any means.

Mr. Tebbit: —neither of whom was an overgrown schoolboy and neither of whom was senile, which was a great advantage, as the hon. Member for Watford (Mr. Tuck) may or may not appreciate—[Interruption.]—and they were ably assisted on that occasion—

The Second Deputy Chairman: Order. It is difficult for me to give any ruling on a point of order when I have not heard


very much of what the hon. Gentleman has been saying. The impression I have at the moment is that we are not getting to a point of order.

Mr. Tebbit: On the contrary, Mr. Godman Irvine, if I may say so, the point that I am putting is that in the debate in 1961 in particular, because of the skill and attention to their duty of distinguished former Members of the House, as well as such a distinguished Member as the right hon. Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish), the former Government Chief Whip, it was discovered that the Bill was incorrect, that there was a mistake in it.
Initially, Sir Edward Boyle, as he then was, and the late Sir Harry Legge-Bourke attempted to make the point to the Chair that it did not matter. The Chair, very rightly, took the view that it did matter, and on that occasion, after considerable debate both on matters of substance and on the particular question, the debate was adjourned and resumed two days later, again continuing at considerable length.

The Second Deputy Chairman: Order. prospect of a further two days' debate fills me with great interest, and I would not in any way wish to inhibit the hon. Gentleman in having such debate as is in order. But I have already tried to indicate what the scope is. If the hon. Gentleman will confine himself purely to that we may, I think, make some progress.

11.15 a.m.

Mr. Tebbit: Indeed, Mr. Godman Irvine. I have already put to you that there has been debate at length at this stage of the Bill on three occasions within recent times—certainly, I imagine, within the memory of the hon. Member for Watford. May I ask you to direct your attention to column 203 of Hansard for 20th February 1961? You will find there the report of the speech of Mr. Diamond, as he then was, discussing at considerable length the inflationary or deflationary effects of either enacting the Bill or not enacting it, with reference to Clause 1 and the sums of money mentioned therein. That was a substantial debate, dealing with the inflationary and deflationary effects of releasing or failing to release these moneys from the Consolidated Fund. The debate was sub-

sequently replied to by the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, again at some length.
We can thus see from those events in 1961 a strong precedent for discussing the general inflationary and deflationary effects of the release of these sums of money out of the Consolidated Fund and into the economy. I am sure that the Financial Secretary and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury will wish to stay here to listen to debate on these matters, debate in which, no doubt, many of my hon. Friends will wish to engage and which you, Mr. Godman Irvine, I am sure, will hold to be within order in accordance with the precedent of 1961.

The Second Deputy Chairman: On 19th July by resolution the House approved the present Bill, and that, I think, puts the hon. Gentleman into some difficulty.

Mr. Tebbit: With respect, no, because in precisely similar fashion the House by resolution had already approved the Bill in 1961.

The Second Deputy Chairman: Order. We are considering Clause 1, and if the hon. Gentleman has some relevant remarks to make about Clause 1 I am ready to hear him.

Mr. Peter Rees: On a point of order, Mr. Godman Irvine. May I revert to your ruling as to the manner in which we should approach the Committee stage of the Bill? As I understood it, your ruling was that we were entitled to put down amendments to question the manner of application of the funds which we are being asked to vote today. May I, therefore, ask you to refer to page 11 of the Bill, Schedule (B), Part 4. This is a practical point, not a hypothetical question, on which I seek your guidance. You will there see, under Class II Vote 7—
For Her Majesty's foreign and other secret services".
Reverting to the point earlier made so ably by my hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire, South-West (Mr. Cormack), I should wish to put down a manuscript amendment—it is on this that I seek your guidance—to the effect that of the sum of £l½ million at least £l million should be appropriated to the improved bugging of No. 10 Downing Street, since


it is apparent that we should explore with great particularity what has been going on and whether there has been a substantial breach of security.
Of course, I wish in no way to impugn the honour of the right hon. Member for Huyton (Sir H. Wilson) or of the present Prime Minister—no doubt, we shall wish to explore the matter in general on another occasion, though whether today I know not—but I wish to know whether I may put down a manuscript amendment to the effect that £1 million be specifically applied under that Vote for the improvement of the—if I may use that rather coarse word again—bugging of No. 10. Would you accept such an amendment, Mr. Godman Irvine?

The Second Deputy Chairman: I have already referred the House to page 746 of "Erskine May", where it is said that
subjects involving expenditure cannot be discussed".
Therefore, I could not accept such an amendment.

Mr. Rees: Further to that point of order, Mr. Godman Irvine. I must have misunderstood the scope of your ruling. Perhaps at this hour of the morning I am rather more obtuse than are some hon. Members, but I understood that the manner of application could be the subject of debate in Committee. If that be so, perhaps you could amplify your ruling for me, if for no one else. The manuscript amendment that I should seek to put down relates to the manner of application of a particular sum which we must be presumed to have passed on Second Reading half an hour or so ago.

The Second Deputy Chairman: If the hon. and learned Member for Dover and Deal (Mr. Rees) will look at the page of "Erskine May" to which I have just referred, and then turn the page, he will discover that it says on the next page:
debate and amendment must be restricted to the principle of appropriation".

Mr. Nicholas Ridley: On a point of order, Mr. Godman Irvine. I wish to raise a different point of order. The Bill says on page 2:
In addition to the said sums granted out of the Consolidated Fund, there may be

applied out of any money directed, under section 2 of the Public Accounts and Charges Act 1891, to be applied as appropriations in aid of the grants for the services and purposes specified in Schedule (B)".
The Public Accounts and Charges Act 1891 clearly is highly relevant to the debate that we may have on Schedule (B). However, I am afraid that I have to tell you that copies of the Public Accounts and Charges Act 1891 are not available in the Vote Office. It will be within your memory that it is only two days since we had trouble of this kind before. In view of that, I should have thought that the Government might have learnt their lesson and placed copies of the relevant papers in the Vote Office.
With my usual diligence, I slipped back home and, after consulting my volumes of the statutes, I have obtained a photocopy of the Public Accounts and Charges Act 1891. I am prepared to make it available to you so that it may be photocopied and distributed to hon. Members, if that will get the Government out of the difficulty into which they have again got themselves.
It may be, however, that that would be out of order, and I do not wish to suggest anything which is out of order. Might it not be better to adjourn the Committee stage until the Government have made available copies of the necessary parent legislation, which is the Public Accounts and Charges Act 1891, which should be freely available to hon. Members if they are to enter into debate on the Bill?

The Second Deputy Chairman: The hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) will be aware from recent experience that this is not a matter for the Chair. Hon. Members must provide their own documents or the Government must make them available.

Mr. Michael Mates: Further to that narrow point of order, Mr. Godman Irvine. Although I realise that the Chair has no power in these matters, did not Mr. Speaker say clearly in the early hours of Wednesday morning that the Chair had power to influence and to guide the Government? The fact that it took the Government two hours to accept Mr. Speaker's influence, guidance and advice surely does not prevent


your acting in a similar manner—acknowledging that you do not possess the power to command the Government to provide Back Benchers with the documents that they need properly to discuss the Committee stage of this Bill, but giving the Government the same advice.

The Second Deputy Chairman: The distinction between the precedent which the hon. Member for Petersfield (Mr. Mates) is quoting now and the position in which we find ourselves today is that the document to which the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury drew my attention is a published document. Therefore, it is available if hon. Members take the trouble to find it.

Mr. David Hunt: Further to the points of order which have been raised, Mr. Godman Irvine. I should like to obtain your assurance that the debate on this Committee stage can run with the full and free rein which was allowed by the Chair on the two occasions to which my hon. Friend the Member for Essex, South-East (Sir B. Braine) referred—on 16th February 1971 and on 2Gth February 1961.
Some hon. Members have sought to throw doubt on the motives of the Opposition in raising these matters, but is it not a fact that we feel very strongly about the Government's attempt to put through a clause which permits £22 billion of expenditure? Although we are not allowed to refer to that fact on the principle of appropriation, is it not possible to demonstrate how much the Government have railroaded through legislation, have ignored the Opposition, have ignored the country, and at the moment are—

The Second Deputy Chairman: Order. We are discussing Clause 1. The principle of appropriation arises under Clause 2. It may be that what the hon. Member for Wirral (Mr. Hunt) wants to say will be more relevant when we get to Clause 2.

Sir Bernard Braine: On a point of order, Mr. Godman Irvine. I am grateful to you for permitting me to raise what is a somewhat different point of order.
For the guidance of the Committee, you have quoted "Erskine May". Perhaps I may draw your attention to page 745, where it says:

Debate and amendment on the stages of these bills"—
Consolidated Fund Bills—
must be relevant to each bill and must be confined to the conduct or action of those who receive or administer the grants specified in the bill.
My original point concerned whether I could move an amendment at a later stage touching directly on this. To save the time of the Committee, perhaps I may point out the circumstances that I have in mind.
Last December, the Vice-Chancellor, Sir Robert Megarry, in an impeccable judgment, castigated Her Majesty's Government for breaches of what was described as "the higher trust" towards the Banaban people on Ocean Island. The implication clearly was that the British Government had to make some financial provision. One would have assumed, therefore—

The Second Deputy Chairman: Order. I think that the hon. Member for Essex, South-East (Sir B. Braine) has omitted to turn over the page in "Erskine May". Having considered all the matters to which he has directed my attention, it says:
On the clauses dealing with the issue of money out of the Consolidated Fund, subjects involving expenditure cannot be discussed.
That is, after having considered page 745.

Sir B. Braine: With respect, Mr. Godman Irvine, if you will permit me to develop my point, you will realise that I am not talking about expenditure as such. I am talking about the conduct or action of those who receive or administer the grants.
That being so, I wish to refer to a specific case where it was reasonable for hon. Members to infer that provision would be made out of the sums voted by Parliament in order that our honourable obligations might be met. In fact, in May, the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary announced that the compensation to be paid to the Banabans was to be paid out of moneys in the British Phosphate Commission's fund which properly belongs to the aggrieved people themselves. Therefore, it is essential for us to know whether the money in the British Phosphate Commission's fund,


which in fact belongs to the very people who have been robbed over the years, has been passed into—

The Second Deputy Chairman: Order. We are coming back to the original example in "Erskine May" to which I asked the hon. Member for Essex, South-East to pay attention and which is to be found on page 746—
subjects involving expenditure cannot be discussed.

Mr. Robert Adley: On a point of order, Mr. Godman Irvine. In an earlier ruling, you said that we could debate only expenditure which was to be spent "in a certain way". We understand your clear ruling that we must not ask for more money or for less money but that we may debate expenditure "in a certain way". My hon. Friend the Member for Essex, South-East (Sir B. Braine) has mentioned one example. There is also, for instance, the question whether in the Falkland Islands the money which the Government are spending should be spent on Royal Marines there who, apparently, have taken away a number of girls, or on Royal Engineers, who have not.
Then my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral (Mr. Hunt) quoted instances in 1961 and 1971 when the Committee stage of the Consolidated Fund Bill was debated. It will be within your know. ledge that in both years there were Conservative Governments in office. Surely it is not right that we should make one rule about debating the Committee stage of the Consolidated Fund Bill when a Conservative Government are in office and another when a Labour Government are in office.
I turn finally to what I consider to be the most serious of my points of order. It concerns what may be a case for abandoning the debate altogether. I have been studying the Bill and the Supply Estimates related to it. I refer to page 18 of the Bill, where Class VI, Vote 6, is under the following heading:
For expenditure by the Welsh Office on roads and certain associated services including lorry areas, lighting and road safety, and on assistance to public surface transport".
11.30 a.m.
I now turn to the Supply Estimates 1977-78, to that identical reference, Class

VI, Vote 6, page VI-39. Instead of referring to Welsh Office expenditure, it is headed "Civil Aviation Services", and it then says:
being the ESTIMATE of the amount required in the year ending 31 March 1978 for the expenditure by the Department of Trade on civil aviation services including a grant in aid of the Civil Aviation Authority and international subscriptions.
It seems to me that the two documents simply do not tie up. I have not had a chance to examine every single reference, but if there is one that is wrong, there may be others. We cannot proceed with a debate on a Bill the associated document attached to which bears a wholly different reference. There may be a serious error here, Mr. Godman Irvine, and when we are talking of the entire content of Government expenditure we need some assistance.

The Second Deputy Chairman: At the moment we are debating Clause 1. It may well be that the hon. Member for Christchurch and Lymington (Mr. Adley) may have a point which may be debated at some other stage in the Bill. I ask the House to proceed to the debate on Clause 1.

Mr. James Prior: Further to the point of order, Mr. Godman Irvine. I think that we have not started to debate Clause 1. We have been on points of order ever since the debate started. I think this is a new and important point of order. As the Financial Secretary to the Treasury is here, should not he reply to it, Mr. Godman Irvine, so that the House can be told whether the facts as stated by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch and Lymington (Mr. Adley) render the Bill inoperable and out of order?

The Second Deputy Chairman: Would not the best procedure be to start with Clause 1? Then, when we come to the part about which the hon. Member for Christchurch and Lymington (Mr. Adley) is complaining, perhaps the Financial Secretary will then be able to deal with it. Mr. Bell.

Mr. Ronald Bell: On a point of order, Mr. Godman Irvine. I wish to address the Committee on the motion, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Mr. Cormack: Mr. Cormack rose—

Mr. Bell: If my hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire, South-West (Mr. Cormack) has a point of order, may I resume after he has spoken?

Mr. Cormack: On a point of order, Mr. Godman Irvine. May I direct your attention to page 747 of "Erskine May", the last sentence of the first paragraph, which begins with the words:
If the bill is amended in Committee"?
Obviously, if that statement is in "Erskine May", the Bill can be amended in Committee. I now refer to a few sentences higher up on the same page, 747, where it says that:
amendment must be restricted to the principle of appropriation".
It would assist the Committee materially, Mr. Godman Irvine, if you were able to give us a definition of the term "principle of appropriation". I have been consulting my colleagues during the proceedings of the past half hour, and many of us are in a quandary as to the exact interpretation. Even my hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley), who is such a notable exponent of parliamentary procedure, was not entirely clear in his mind as to what it meant. It would assist us if you would give us a definition—

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Members rose—

The Second Deputy Chairman: Order. The point of order may be relevant under Clause 2 but it is not relevant under Clause 1. I ask the Committee to consider Clause 1.

Mr. Cormack: Mr. Cormack rose—

The Second Deputy Chairman: Order. In 1888 the Chairman said:
Clause 1 is a question that the Committee may either affirm or reject but it can do nothing else.
That is what I am asking the Committee to do now.
The question, therefore, is, That the clause stand part of the Bill. As many as are of that opinion—

Mr. Bell: I thought I already had the Floor. You had called me to speak, Mr. Godman Irvine, and I deferred to a point of order. May I respectfully suggest that perhaps I am in possession of the Floor of the Committee?

Mr. Gow: On a point of order, Mr. Godman Irvine. I was under the impression that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell) had risen on a point of order.

Mr. Bell: I rose earlier, Mr. Godman Irvine, to speak on the clause. You called me. I was then interrupted by my hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire, South-West on a point of order, and had to sit down. I would like to resume my speech as soon as I may. I had to give way to points of order.

Mr. Gow: On a point of order, Mr. Godman Irvine. Did I correctly understand a moment ago that it was your ruling that we are not allowed to have the debate on the motion, That the clause stand part of the Bill? [Interruption.] If that was not your ruling, may I address you on one of the references to which you drew my attention when I read out a passage from page 747 of "Erskine May"? You referred me to the Official Report of the Session 1962-63, at column 1481. On that occasion the occupant of the Chair was Sir William Anstruther-Gray, and a debate then took place on the question whether a clause in the Consolidated Fund Bill should stand part. Sir Spencer Summers, who was then addressing the House, received a reply from the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, my noble Friend Lord Barber. I submit that this debate, from which I should like to quote in order to obtain a ruling from you, makes it perfectly clear that, provided we are debating the principle of appropriation, any debate and, indeed, any amendment is in order.

The Second Deputy Chairman: That would be relevant under Clause 2 but not under Clause 1.

Mr. Cormack: On a point of order, Mr. Godman Irvine. I should like to consider tabling manuscript amendments to Clause 2, and it would materially assist us if you would advise us what would be in order and what would not. I have noticed that on page 21 of the Bill, Schedule (B), Class X, 1, the last words refer to
subscription to an international organisation
in the context of
expenditure by the Department of Education and Science".


I should like to know to which international organisation it refers. I want also to know whether it is possible for me to table an amendment which can strictly limit the international organisations to which such subscriptions can be made. I am in a great quandary—as are my hon. Friends, many of whom would wish to support me—because I do not know whether I can table such an amendment, or whether you could accept it. If you could advise us accordingly, it would be of assistance and enable my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell) to proceed with what will obviously be a speech of great interest and importance.

The Second Deputy Chairman: I am waiting anxiously to hear what the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell) will have to say. All I had said before was that on page 747 of "Erskine May" it says that
debate and amendment must be restricted to the principle of appropriation".
I have not said that there cannot be an amendment, but until I have seen an amendment I cannot give a ruling on whether it is in order. Mr. Bell.

Mr. Bell: Mr. Bell rose—

Mr. Mates: On a point of order, Mr. Godman Irvine. I am now confused and I seek your assistance. [Interruption.] I am only a simple soul. It seems to me that what you are indicating is that we as Back Benchers cannot table amendments in Committee to Clause 1, whereas it would appear from page 747 of "Erskine May" that consideration can be given to amendments. I am not clear why the Chair seems to be saying to us all along "No, you cannot table amendments, nor can you have discussion", whereas "Erskine May" says quite clearly, as I understand it, that
Amendments cannot be moved to clauses or schedules to effect the omission or reduction of the amount of a grant"—
that I understand—
or of the appropriations in aid of it"—
that I understand—
or an alteration in the destination of a grant"—
that I understand—

or to appropriate to a particular service the sum issued by a Consolidated Fund Bill, not being an Appropriation Bill".
I understand that too.
Nevertheless, the fact remains that subject to these restrictions it is perfectly in order for us to address the Committee on Clause 1 stand part, as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell) has attempted to do, and as I shall do if I am fortunate enough to catch your eye, Mr. Godman Irvine. I also hope to move amendments that are not subject to these narrow restrictions. We seem to be being restricted by rulings of the Chair rather more than would seem the case from the specific examples that I have given. Subject to the subtitles (e), (f), (g), (h), (k) and (l), which are specific reasons, we should be free to table amendments to any part of the Bill at Committee stage and we should be free to discuss them, subject to remaining within the rules of order.
I appreciate that the rules of order are narrowly drawn for the purpose of keeping the debate strictly to the point but, subject to that, is there any reason why I should not table amendments to Clause 1, and is there any reason why we should not be free to discuss this matter openly, and if we feel strongly enough seek to test the opinion of the House?

Mr. George Cunningham: On a point of order, Mr. Godman Irvine. Since you are having to rule on a number of these points on the extent of the discussion, could I ask you to bear in mind that the precedent set today will of course be followed? Bad precedents are always more rigorously followed than good ones. There will come another August when our positions are reversed and this precedent will be followed. I have no doubt that the Opposition Front Bench will have put these points to their colleagues.
There are occasions when it is absolutely legitimate to use the weapon of time to prevent something from happening to which one is bitterly opposed. In those circumstances one is entitled to use it. On this occasion the matter at issue is the Consolidated Fund Bill—£23 billion to which the Opposition are not opposed and against which they will not vote—

Mr. Adley: How does the hon. Member know that?

Mr. Cunningham: Members of the Opposition Front Bench are nodding in agreement with me.

Mr. Adley: Never mind the Front Bench.

Mr. Cunningham: We all know that the Opposition would not vote against the Consolidated Fund Bill because they know the precedent that would create. On this occasion it is not a case of putting off some specific subject; it is a question whether the time of Parliament and hon. Members is being used up. God knows that the public does not have a very high opinion of this place anyhow. When one sees what is going on—the charade of wearing top hats and this sort of silliness—one cannot wonder at that.
We all want to stop particular things from time to time but no one is trying to stop the Consolidated Fund Bill, and we do ourselves, democracy and the dignity of Parliament no good at all by conducting ourselves excessively in this way. If we continue with this there will come a time when our positions are reversed and this bad precedent will be followed.

Mr. Cormack: Of all hon. Members in the House the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham). who has indulged in so many charades this Session, blocking so many worthwhile Bills, is the last who should lecture us.

Mr. Tebbit: On a point of order, Mr. Godman Irvine. Could you arrange for what was clearly an error in the Official Report to be put right? I think that the hon. Member far Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham) meant to make that speech in 1971 when his hon. Friends, some of whom are now on the Front Bench, played exactly the same game.

11.45 a.m.

The Second Deputy Chairman: At least I am not responsible for what happened in 1971.

Mr. Tebbit: Further to that point of order, Mr. Godman Irvine. It would be appropriate if you could arrange for the

amendment to be made to Hansard so that the hon. Member's speech could appear in the 1971 copy.

Mr. Cunningham: The hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit) is absolutely right, and he proves my point that bad precedents are followed. For God's sake let us stop escalating this, and end all this nonsense, otherwise there will come a time when the rules will have to be changed and the legitimate use of the weapon of time will not be so readily available to hon. Members.
Certainly, I have abused—if the hon. Member for Staffordshire, South-West (Mr. Cormack) insists on putting it like that—this entitlement of hon. Members, but I have had a specific objective in mind which was, in the end, achieved. That is not the case here because no one wants to stop the Consolidated Fund Bill.

Mr. Adley: The hon. Member should speak for himself.

Mr. Nigel Spearing: On a point of order, Mr. Godman Irvine. Is it not a fact that the Bill we are now discussing in Committee is subsequent to the resolution of the House on Supply which has already been agreed? Therefore, the question of the principle of the Bill is not at issue. For many years it has been a convention of the House that hon. Members wishing to raise particular points concerning expenditure or other matters should do so on Second Reading and arrangements have been made for large amounts of time to be allocated for that purpose. This convention has been accepted by both sides on the understanding that subsequent stages of the Bill should go through without debate.

Mr. Adley: No.

Mr. Spearing: This has been the custom for many years. Whatever may be proper in the rules of order is, nevertheless, against the customs and the traditions of the House.

The Second Deputy Chairman: On a resolution of the House as recently as 19th July hon. Members had the opportunity to make their observations. We are bound by that resolution and I have indicated today that any debate must be of very narrow scope.

Mr. Adley: The hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham) is being exceedingly unfair to Conservative hon. Members. We recognise that the Bill has had a Second Reading. We are now on Committee stage. Is the hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) suggesting that we are not allowed to discuss what you, Mr. Godman Irvine, have already said we might discuss—namely, the details of expenditure in this Bill?,

The Second Deputy Chairman: That is exactly what I am asking the House to do, and I have asked the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield to assist me.

Mr. Mates: On a point of order, Mr. Godman Irvine. With respect, the points of order that I put to you about 10 minutes ago have not yet been answered.

The Second Deputy Chairman: The hon. Member was reading from the page of "Erskine May" to which I referred. I have given a summary of what "Erskine May" has purported in the sentence that the hon. Member quoted. Nothing that I have said would inhibit him from doing anything on that today.

Mr. Bell: I still remember what I wanted to say when I caught your eye a considerable time ago, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I hope that I am setting a good precedent. I welcome the turn that events have taken and even the restrictive nature of the rules that control debate on the Committee stage of a Consolidated Fund Bill.
The rules derive from the fact that such Bills authorise payments out of the Exchequer and appropriation of particular sums to particular Votes in respect of matters that have been debated by the House in the preceding Session. The whole Bill is linked to Votes of Supply.
The reason that we turn Second Reading debates on Consolidated Fund Bills into general discussions of all the affairs of the nation and then authorise the payment of £22,000 million on the nod is that we assume that debates on the expenditures have taken place during the preceding Session.
I welcome this unexpected opportunity to talk about mechanics because, over the years, we have abandoned our con-

trol over expenditure. Supply Votes have not been about expenditure. They have been used for general debates of general politics. All sorts of formal motions have been tabled, including moves to reduce a Minister's salary by £5. Sometimes the Supply Vote is moved formally and is followed by a debate on the Adjournment. Then on the last Supply Day of the Session, almost the whole lot is passed under a guillotine at 9.30 p.m. on the nod. By practice and the accumulation in "Erskine May" of progressively more restrictive rulings, we have abandoned all control over expenditure.
I wish that my right hon. Friend the Member for Taunton (Mr. du Cann) were here tonight—I apologise, it is now tomorrow.

Mr. Prior: My hon. and learned Friend is wrong. It is still yesterday.

Mr. Bell: Whatever the day, my right hon. Friend the Member for Taunton, who is Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, takes a great interest in the way in which control over expenditure of the executive has been sliding away from the control of the House.
The Bill falls into two parts. Clause 1 is not actually appropriation. The Bill is a strange chameleon-like instrument. It starts life as a Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) Bill and ends up as the Appropriation Act. The reason is that Clause 1 does not appropriate. Although there is a ruling that, in Commitee, one must talk about the principle of appropriation, Clause 1 is not about appropriation. It is the key resolution of the House. It becomes an Act of Parliament authorising payment of £22,000 million out of the Consolidated Fund. The provision has always been entitled:
Grant out of Consolidated Fund",
but the House has never been willing to take the Bill except at the end of a Session —a question of redressing grievances before voting Supply.
In a way, ordering Clause 1 to stand part of the Bill is the most significant thing that we do because we are unlocking the Exchequer. If we do not order the clause to stand part, all the Supply Votes of the previous Session are of no


effect and no money can be paid in satisfaction of them. Any money that has been paid must be clawed back. The clause is of immense constitutional importance and used to be recognised as such. This is the first time that we have had a debate on the Consolidated Fund Bill on the mechanics of the control of public expenditure.

Mr. George Cunningham: It is not.

Mr. Bell: I should be glad if the hon. Gentleman is right. This is something to which we should turn our minds.

Dr. M. S. Miller: I note that the hon. and learned Gentleman is interested in the mechanics, but would he confirm that if there were a concerted effort—which my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham) says there is not—and the Bill were defeated, certain people, including doctors, National Health Service nurses, old-age pensioners and those on legal aid would not receive any money?

Mr. Bell: I go further. Government Whips and hon. Members would not be paid. The hon. Gentleman is doing exactly what I have been regretting. He is turning the debate away from the control of expenditure towards the merits of particular expenditures. We never go through the Estimates. We have general debating society type debates on matters that the day throws up and when we come to the final act of unlocking the Exchequer we spend the whole night on general subjects, all of which are important, and an hour on points of order which have nothing to do with control of expenditure.

Mr. George Cunningham: I thank the hon. and learned Gentleman for giving way. I promise him and my hon. Friends that I shall not intervene again. The 29 Supply Days that have been given to the Opposition for many decades and on which they choose the subjects for discussion, could and should be used for the expenditure control purposes for which they were originally intended. It is the Opposition's decision to use Supply Days to table Adjournment motions that are wholly ineffective in relation to controlling expenditure. However, it is a deci-

sion of the Opposition and has nothing to do with procedure.

Mr. Bell: Mr. Bell rose—

The Second Deputy Chairman: Order. That intervention does not arise under Clause 1.

Mr. Bell: The reproach that the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham) addressed to the present Opposition applies to all Oppositions for a long time past.
I shall address the House for only another two minutes. I am grateful to have been able to seize the opportunity to make some points that needed to be made. We cannot go on taking the Consolidated Fund Bill formally if we are not going to use Supply Day debates, at least in part, for the purposes for which they were intended.
No one could accuse me of having precipitated a General Election by making these points, though I must add that I would not mind if I had done so.

12 noon.

Mr. Cormack: My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell) has performed a signal service to the Committee in raising the points that he has raised. I do not want to make a long speech, but I reinforce what he said. Both he and the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham) are at one, and I hope that there are more of us who are at one, on the issue that this debating Chamber, which ought with great care and continual scrutiny to look at these enormous sums of money which we are voting, does not do so. Instead, it debates generalities. I think that that is why Parliament is perhaps not held in as high esteem as the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury and I would wish.
I do not think that it is a question of points of order and things of that nature. In a strange sort of way, people understand them. Although I criticised the hon. Gentleman because I thought it appropriate to do so, people understand why he used the procedure of the House in the way he did earlier in this Session. People will understand why we were using the procedure of the House, quite


properly, as we did in the earlier part of the debate on this Bill.
My hon. and learned Friend has highlighted a parliamentary deficiency of the highest order. Here in Clause 1—I want to keep myself totally in order—we have this enormous, unimaginable sum, so far as the general public are concerned—£22 million plus. It is a sum beyond the comprehension of any Member of this Committee, let alone any of our constituents. It is our constituents' money, the nation's money, that we are talking about.
I am glad to see that I have the support of the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Sandelson) in this, because I know that he is a man of considerable acumen who takes a very great and legitimate concern in the way in which the public's money is spent.
We are now at the end of a long, fairly gruelling and sometimes rather stupid Session, in which we have devoted an enormous length of time to debating things that do not matter. Here on the very last day, we find ourselves in this extraordinary position of being suddenly confronted with this sum of money in a way that we cannot question, and we cannot amend it.

Mr. Spearing: Is the hon. Gentleman not misleading the Committee and those who may be listening to him or may read what he is saying? On the Second Reading of this Bill it was open to any Member of the House to make at least a request to deal with great particularities. Even many of the Supply Days to which he refers are dealing with particular points and not the generalities that he mentioned earlier.

Mr. Cormack: If the hon. Gentleman likes, I will make a general confession, and a mea culpa, because we have not done the things that we ought to have done. What we should have done, on each and every occasion when it was appropriate, was to have questioned—

The Second Deputy Chairman: Order. I think that the hon. Gentleman is straying beyond the bounds of Clause 1.

Mr. Cormack: I hope that I am not, Mr. Godman Irvine, because I am trying

to relate my remarks exclusively and absolutely to the sum of money in Clause 1—£22,730,155,000. Everything that am saying is related to that.

Mr. Ronald Bell: Clause 1 authorises a payment out of the Consolidated Fund in satisfaction of the Votes. Would it not be a legitimate argument for an hon. Member—it was not one that I advanced —to say that he does not wish to authorise the payment out because in his view the expenditures were not sufficiently considered?

The Second Deputy Chairman: What the hon. Member for Staffordshire, South-West (Mr. Cormack) must address himself to is whether he accepts or rejects Clause 1.

Mr. Cormack: I reluctantly accept it, Mr. Godman Irvine, and I was not one of the 21 who objected to the Second Reading of this Bill, because I thought it was irresponsible so to do. But I believe that on this occasion, as we are having this debate, it is appropriate to refer, as the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury has done, and as my hon. and learned Friend has done, to the way in which we have allowed parliamentary control over these sums to slip away and be taken from us while we concentrate on generalities.
I am suggesting that in the new Session of Parliament, when we come back in the autumn and begin to address ourselves to these matters, we ought to relate Supply to Supply. We ought to debate these sums of money and discuss them.

The Second Deputy Chairman: I hope that we shall not debate Clause 1 when we come back.

Mr. Cormack: I trust that we shall not. If I have anything to do with it, we shall certainly not.
I do not intend to speak for very much longer. With great respect, Mr. Godman Irvine, I suggest that my remarks are entirely relevant. I suggest that what we have done is to allow things to happen which should not have happened. I hope that we shall benefit from our sins in the new Session.

Mr. William Molloy: I thought that the point made by the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell), who has now left the Chamber, had a great deal of substance. In keeping with the remarks of the hon. and learned Gentleman, I think that the hon. Member would acknowledge that. The hon. Member has mentioned the vast sum, which mystifies everybody. We know that. But anything within that expenditure could be debated in this Chamber. That is what it is all about. If there is any aspect that has not been debated, it is because some hon. Member has not selected it. But the opportunity has been there.

Mr. Mates: No.

The Second Deputy Chairman: Perhaps I may ask the hon. Member for Staffordshire, South-West to confine his remarks to Clause 1.

Mr. Cormack: Indeed, Mr. Godman Irvine I am confining myself to the sum of £22,730,155,000, and it was in the context of that sum that the hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Molloy) made an entirely apposite intervention, and I agree with him. What I am trying to do —I hope that I have the hon. Gentleman's approbation and support—is to say that collectively we have allowed the control that is properly ours to slip away from us because we have not debated Supply in the way we should have done.

Mr. Mates: Is my hon. Friend aware that the remarks of the hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Molloy) are simply not true? There are those of us in the Chamber who have sought the opportunity to raise detailed votes and clauses throughout the night. We have been denied that right by a Government seeking to pack up and go home. As we have been denied that right—

The Second Deputy Chairman: Order. The hon. Member is nowhere near Clause 1.

Mr. Cormack: I understand what my hon. Friend was getting at, but that was really like closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. Whatever we had said during the night, and whether or not

the closure had been moved, we could not have altered this sum by a jot or tittle. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield, the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury, the hon. Member for Ealing, North and myself are united. It is a most extraordinary coalition, but we are united in saying that this sum, the British people's money, has not been debated in this Parliament. It is too late. But it is not too late to point a moral and adorn the tale.
With that I draw my remarks to a close. I hope that in the coming Session we shall all come back suitably chastened, determined to ensure that in a year's time we do not debate £25,000 million when it is too late to have any control over its expenditure.

Mr. Tebbit: If one looks back at how these debates have run in the past, when they have run, one finds that there has been a common theme running through them. This is a common theme which is at present disavowed by some hon. Members, and wrongly so. The common theme is that which has been mentioned by those of my hon. Friends who have spoken, although the matter has been put in many different ways. It is that on this clause we are dealing with very large sums of money—sums over which we no longer have control and over which it has been held that control has been loose and will be loose in terms of their disbursement.
The Executive of the day—on the last two occasions it was a Conservative Administration—sought to prevent discussion on the Bill through the use of traditional rules of the House. Opposition Members, on the contrary, sought to discuss it. On Clause 1 of the Bill—an exact parallel to what we are now doing—the right hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. Stewart) in 1961 made a very witty and pertinent speech on the use of the word "may" in that clause. That word appears there now. The right hon. Gentleman was asking what "may" meant. It sounds unbearably trivial, and the Chair ruled that provided the right hon. Gentleman did not actually get to the question whether there should be a different word he was in order, but that if he actually got on to the substantive question whether there should be a different word he would be out of order.
The right hon. Gentleman was able to discuss in quite a light-hearted and, indeed, at times almost frivolous manner the various possible meanings of the word "may". I do not intend to follow the right hon. Gentleman's example on this matter. [HON. MEMBERS: "Shame."] I hope that my hon. Friends will excuse me, but I am making a serious point. In any case, the right hon. Gentleman dealt with it rather well. I should not want my efforts to be compared with his, perhaps to the detriment of mine.
The point that I am making is a more general one. There is a current of opinion in the House that emerges, it seems, at intervals of six or seven years that the way in which we conduct this business is not as it should be. It emerges during a debate on the Committee stage of this Bill. I think that it is perfectly good and proper that it should. I believe that unless it is done periodically the precedents become stronger and stronger that it should not be done, and sooner or later, as someone has suggested, we shall find that the Consolidated Fund itself goes through on the nod. That is another of those tiny ways in which Parliament's control of expenditure would be eroded.
I relate a story that is pertinent to this. It happened between 1970 and 1974, when the Conservative Party was in Government. I was walking across the Lobby outside and I encountered a person whom one normally refers to as a Whip but who was actually a Lord Commissioner of the Treasury. It is Lords Commissioners of the Treasury who actually sign the bits of paper that allow the money to be disbursed through the Consolidated Fund in accordance with this clause.
The Whip said that he was a little dissatisfied with the way that things were, and I inquired why. He had a feeling that his status as a Lord Commissioner of the Treasury was not appropriately regarded by everyone. I asked him in what regard and he said "This morning, for example, I have just been asked to sign a scruffy, dirty bit of paper to authorise the payment on account out of the Consolidated Fund of the sum of £20 million".
That interested me. I was a relatively new Member and I did not know the way

that these things worked. I inquired further. He said "Come to the office. If it is still there I shall show it to you." It was indeed a rather scruffy bit of paper—a sort of roneod pro forma affair. I looked at it and then almost turned away agreeing with him, and then I said "But my dear chap, you have actually signed for £200 million". He had literally signed that dirty, scruffy sheet of paper and had not looked at how many noughts there were on it. That was a result of the slackness that is developing on the part of the House of Commons with regard to the control of its expenditure.
12.15 p.m.
In his speech in 1961 Lord Diamond, as he now is, was much concerned, as was the late Mr. Gaitskell, with the inflationary effects on the economy of the sum of £43 million. There was considerable debate on it and it interested me when I was reading it, as one so often does, to see how the discussion went. Lord Diamond said:
To issue nearly £43 million out of a fund which has not got it to issue is an undertaking which only the most irresponsible of Governments would attempt to put before the Committee. The Government are supposed to be the guardians of the national purse, and it is they who should be showing us steps in financial probity. But, far from that, they are suggesting that we in this Committee, who are giving this matter every possible consideration, should take the unusual step—no wonder it is referred to in Erskine May as abnormal—of issuing the sum of £43 million out of a fund which, on the statement of the Financial Secretary alone, has not got the money to be issued."—[Official Report, 20th February 1961; Vol. 635, c. 205.]
I think that he was probably over-egging the thing. He was raising a point about £43 million. That was in 1961. We are now discussing the same sort of point, not about £43 million but about £22,730,155,000. It is quite an effort at this time of day—whether it is yesterday night or this morning is somewhat beside the point—to think quickly just what multiple that is. I think that it is 500 times as great. Therefore, I would have thought that it was 500 times more appropriate on this occasion that we should discuss the matter.
If Lord Diamond and Mr. Gaitskell thought that it was appropriate that it should be discussed in those days it seems to me that it is not inappropriate that it should be discussed now.

Mr. Nicholas Fairbairn: Not only is it 500 times as great; it represents £500 per man, woman and child in this country. Since only one-third of the people, or rather less, are in work, it represents a burden of £1,500 on every working person in this country, whereas the burden was £1 to £3 in 1961.

Mr. Tebbit: My hon. and learned Friend makes a perfectly correct point. I do not think that it is any less relevant than the remarks made by Lord Diamond and Mr. Gaitskell during that debate.

Sir Bernard Braine: My hon. Friend is making an unusual but characteristically constructive contribution to the debate. As it is unusual for a debate to take place on the Committee stage of the Consolidated Fund Bill—there is no debate at all on Third Reading—I wonder whether my hon. Friend will agree that the time is ripe for an entirely new procedure to be adopted by the House in respect of Second Reading after what happened last night?

The Second Deputy Chairman: On some occasion that might he an interesting discussion, but not under Clause 1.

Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg: Further to that point of order, Mr. Godman Irvine—

The Second Deputy Chairman: It was not a point of order. It was an intervention.

Mr. Tebbit: My hon. Friend is inviting me to go down a very interesting byway.

Sir Bernard Braine: I am asking my hon. Friend to be a reformer.

Mr. Tebbit: That is a very good byway to he taken down, but I prefer to stay on the more precise point of Clause 1.
On the occasion in 1961 an excellent precedent was set. My purpose is to see that that precedent is confirmed so that the House may use it on future occasions. It has rightly been said that this kind of occasion will arise again. The fact that this opportunity has been exploited only by Labour Oppositions is perhaps to the descredit of Conservative Oppositions. Certainly on that occasion on 20th February 1961 there was a debate on Clause 1 of the then Bill dealing with whether a sum of £43 million would be inflationary or deflationary.
It was not only Labour Members in Opposition at the time who took part in that debate. The matter was dealt with at some length in a reply by a Treasury spokesman. I shall not make a long speech on whether the figure of £200,000 million—or however many noughts that figure is supposed to have—is inflationary, deflationary or neutral, or whether it would attract the approval or disapproval of Dr. Witteveen. I doubt very much that I should have the skill to debate these matters against the knowledge and experience of Treasury spokesmen, and no doubt I should come off badly in comparison with a good many of my hon. Friends in such a debate. My purpose is solely to establish on Clause 1 of this Bill in Committee that it is appropriate for hon. Members to question whether the sum involved has an inflationary or deflationary effect or whether it is purely neutral, and to establish whether it continues to be the custom of this House that a Treasury spokesman will reply to the questions which have been put to him.

Mr. Cormack: On a point of order. Mr. Godman Irvine. I notice that the time when Cabinet meetings finish is fast approaching. Can you advise me whether the message was conveyed to the Prime Minister that we should like him to come to the House to make a statement on the important matter which appears in this morning's Press?

The Second Deputy Chairman:: The hon. Gentleman knows that I have no control over Prime Ministers.

Mr. Prior: Further to that point of order, Mr. Godman Irvine. I know that you have no control over that matter, but some of my hon. Friends are anxious, in view of what has happened, that the Prime Minister should make a statement. I gather that that is one reason among others why we are having this rather prolonged discussion in Committee on the Consolidated Fund Bill. It might be appropriate that a message should be conveyed to the Leader of the House or the Prime Minister to come to the House and make a statement on the important matter which appeared in this morning's Press. That might facilitate business.

The Second Deputy Chairman: I can imagine that few hon. Members are better qualified than the right hon. Gentleman to appreciate the niceties of the matter which has been addressed to me.

Mr. Mates: In the few remarks I wish to make on the Question "That the clause stand part of the Bill", I hope, Mr Godman Irvine, that you will allow me to preface my remarks with a complete rebuttal of what has been said by the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham), who suggested that we were trying to conduct a delaying exercise which the public outside will not understand.
I should be happy not to be taking part in this exercise if it were not for two matters. The first is that when we have a real matter of substance we should be allowed to question the Executive, and it is wrong to allow its members to run away from it. If they are seeking to run away from it. hon. Members have to see, by whatever means, to prevent that happening.
The second reason—and the reason why I am inclined to vote against Clause 1—is that generally we have not been able to discuss the implications of this sum of £22,730 million because the Govenment, deliberately, wilfully, and without any good constitutional reason, chose not to reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit) when he was on his feet making a speech on the Second Reading of this Bill. The Government cut him off. I wanted to raise some questions on this large sum of money, not to seek to discuss or change the amount agreed to by the House some time back but to discuss in principle how that sum should have been expended.

The Second Deputy Chairman: Order. We are dealing with Clause 1, and if the hon. Gentleman examines that clause he will see that what he proposes would be completely out of order.

Mr. Mates,: That is one of the reasons why I sought your advice earlier, Mr. Godman Irvine, by raising points of order. I believe I am right in saying that you established that one is allowed to discuss the principle of the spending of that sum of money but not the detail and not to propose any change in that sum.

The Second Deputy Chairman: I have tried to indicate to the hon. Gentleman and to the Committee on a number of occasions that that point might arise on Clause 2 but not on Clause 1.

Mr. Mates: I am in a further difficulty, because I am being asked to cast my vote in favour of Clause 1. If I do so, I am saying that the Treasury may—whatever that word may mean—issue this sum of money which we can go on to discuss in part. But I am not prepared "on the nod" to say when the Treasury may issue out of the Consolidated Fund—

The Second Deputy Chairman: Order. I am not sure where the hon. Gentleman was on 19th July, but the House decided the issue on that occasion.

Mr. Mates: Yes, that is right. Nevertheless, we now have an opportunity, since we are in Committee, to discuss the principle.

The Under-Secretary of State for Trade (Mr. Clinton Davis): The hon. Gentleman does not understand.

Mr. Mates: Who does not?

Mr. Clinton Davis: You do not.

Mr. Mates: I am coming very close to understanding the situation. That is why I am having this exchange of views with the Chair so that I can be brought to understand it.

Mr. Ronald Brown: You will have a job.

Mr. Mates: I want to make a serious and important point.

The Second Deputy Chairman: What the hon. Gentleman is entitled to do is to affirm or deny that he now wants to support what the House decided to do on 19th July.

Mr. Mates: I am inclined to deny that, and I am trying to explain why. I do not think it is right that one should simply troop into the Lobby to register a vote without having a chance to say why.

Mr. Joseph Harper (Comptroller of Her Majesty's Household): That is nonsense. You have had 29 days and all night to say your piece.

The Second Deputy Chairman: The hon. Gentleman will realise that observations from a seated position are not in order.

Mr. Harper: I am doing that because am not able to stand.

Mr. Mates: I take it that one of the Whips is seeking to address me from a seated position.

Mr. Ronald Brown: The hon. Gentleman should reflect on his course of action.

Mr. Mates: There is yet another hon. Member making remarks from a sedentary position.

Mr. Ronald Brown: The hon. Gentleman was making comments earlier from a sedentary position too.

The Second Deputy Chairman: It makes no difference from what parts of the House sedentary interventions come: they are not encouraged by the Chair.

Mr. Mates: The remedy is in the hon. Gentleman's own hands. He was not in the Chamber when I explained these matters earlier.

Mr. Ronald Brown: I was here long before the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg: On a point of order, Mr. Godman Irvine. Is it possible for you to restrain the hon. Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch (Mr. Brown) so that we can at least hear what my hon. Friend is trying to say?

Mr. Ronald Brown: Further to that point of order, Mr. Godman Irvine. The hon. Member for Hampstead (Mr. Finsberg) has been missing all night and for most of the morning. We are delighted to have him with us.

Mr. Tebbit: Further to that point of order, Mr. Godman Irvine. It will be easy to restore the normal calm of the House and restrain hon. Gentlemen from intervening. I would remind the hon. Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch (Mr. Brown) that earlier this morning a Government Whip was able to persuade him not to speak in the debate.

The Second Deputy Chairman: Order. We were not debating Clause 1 then, as far as I can recall. I encourage the hon. Member for Petersfield (Mr. Mates) to address himself to Clause 1.

12.30 p.m.

Mr. Mates: I am only sorry that I have been so frequently and rudely interrupted by the hon. Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch (Mr. Brown), who alleges that I was not here earlier. That is not true. I have been sitting in the Chamber since 6.30 this morning and I shall continue to sit here if necessary. Back Bench Members have no other way of making protests than to try to speak on the various clauses and to find a way of making a perfectly legitimate protest, contrary to what the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury said earlier. We have serious points that we wish to make and to bring before the House. At the moment, I cannot see my way to voting in favour of allowing Clause 1 to stand part of the Bill, because the principle under which these sums are to be issued does not allow us to say "Wait a minute. The principle of such and such is wrong."

Mr. Cormack: I trust that my hon. Friend would not push his opposition to the extent of voting against the clause if the Prime Minister were to come here to address the House on a far more important matter.

Mr. Mates: If the Prime Minister were to appear here, it might make a great deal of difference.

Mr. George Cunningham: This is surely a deadly serious matter. The hon. Member for Petersfield (Mr. Mates), with his past career in the House, should recognise more than most hon. Members that the Prime Minister would never stand at the Dispatch Box and make a statement of any great substance about the security services or the secret services, and it is grossly irresponsible of the hon. Member—

The Second Deputy Chairman: Order.

Mr. Cunningham: This is very serious. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister would not do that.

The Second Deputy Chairman: Order. The Prime Minister is certainly not coming to make a statement on Clause 1. The hon. Member for Petersfield (Mr. Mates) has the opportunity to do so now.

Mr. Mates: Nevertheless, I have no doubt that if the Prime Minister was minded to address the House a way could


rapidly be found within the rules to allow him to do so.

The Second Deputy Chairman:: Order. The hon. Gentleman is straying a little from Clause 1. I must ask him to bring his remarks to a conclusion.

Mr. Mates: The hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury keeps tempting me to reply to him. I must try to resist that temptation. I am not trying to be irresponsible. Some astonishing remarks have appeared in the Press, and the general public and the Press will want to know about this matter from the source—

The Second Deputy Chairman: Order. I call the hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit).

Mr. Tebbit: Since I made my earlier remarks I have been very impressed by the short contribution to the debate by my right hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft (Mr. Prior). Although what he said was a point of order, I think that it was angled to the debate and was extremely important.
It is clear to me that if we were to remove Clause 1 from the Bill the most serious consequences would ensue. These consequences have been discussed before, for example, in 1961 when on 20th February the then Mr. Diamond, who, I understand, was speaking on behalf of the official Opposition about the general practice in regard to the way in which the Bill was conducted, stated:
We should not adopt this practice, I suggest. It may have been adopted hitherto, but it is to the credit of this Opposition that they have discovered an error and weakness in the practice previously adopted by Parliament in conducting its financial affairs.
He was dealing with general matters but also with a possibly unfair accusation that had been made that, if the then Opposition voted against Clause 1 of the Bill, or attempted to delay it, it would be held that they were delaying payment to various good people—a similar point has been made this morning—and that in particular they would have been delaying the implementation of the Pilkington Report. The hon. Member for Willesden, West (Mr. Pavitt) referred to this in 1961 and asked Mr. Diamond:

Do I understand that my hon. Friend wishes to oppose this Clause entirely on financial considerations, but that this has nothing to do with expenditure because we are not allowed to discuss expenditure? Therefore, when we oppose the Clause, it will be interpreted not as opposition to the Pilkington Report but to the Government machinery giving effect to that Report?
Mr. Diamond replied:
I had previously assumed that I was not, perhaps, speaking with sufficient clarity. What my hon. Friend says is absolutely right. There is nothing in the Clause or in what we may do tonight when we come to vote to relate it, otherwise than by assumption, to the Pilkington Report or to the remuneration of doctors. We have been told by the Chair on many occasions that we are not discussing expenditure and we are not entitled to do so.
It is clear that if we took that step and voted against this clause—as Mr. Diamond so elegantly explained to his hon. Friend on that occasion—it should not be taken that we are necessarily against the expenditure of any of the particular matters to which the Fund relates. I shall not go into those other matters or those services, because that would clearly be out of order. They have been discussed already, or should have been. They would have been discussed to a much greater extent had the Government not curtailed the discussion.
One of the effects that would follow from the removal of Clause 1—or, even more, rejection by the House of the Third Reading of the Consolidated Fund Bill—would be that all Government services would be starved of money at once, as would a number of other people. This is a matter that we should consider most deeply. Each of us must decide what attitude we should take to voting on Clause 1 and consider the effect of removing this clause and refusing to sanction the expenditure of £22,000 million.
I notice, fascinatingly enough, that this round figure has three noughts at the end of it, very neatly, whereas when we get to Clause 2 we find that there is an odd 47p at the end. It is a cause of some amusement that the accountancy of all Governments is such that on occasions they can get to an accuracy of within 47p while in other instances it is rounded down to three noughts. One sometimes wonders whether the printer had added on an extra three noughts and no one had noticed.
If we decide that the clause should be enacted, we have to consider the serious consequences. The Government would be left without funds. I understand that it is possible that for a short time the Government could use the Civil Contingency Fund. That matter was discussed in the previous debates. I find myself in the same position as those who took part in those debates, since I am not clear to what extent there are moneys in the Civil Contingency Fund that could be used temporarily to cover expenditure that would otherwise be authorised out of the Consolidated Fund. Perhaps the consequences would not be as drastic as one imagines initially.
It is traditional that this Bill is presented after the Government decide on the date of the Summer Recess. The recess date governs the date on which the Bill is presented. If the Government had had a legislative mishap which could be repaired by extending the Session for a week or so, that would have been done and the Bill would have been discussed in a fortnight's time. If we did not pass the Bill, therefore, we should be no worse off than if the Session had been so extended.
There is a distinction between not passing a Bill and defeating it. If the Government had said that they were taking the Bill away for further consideration, as the Conservative Government did in 1961, to present it later, no harm would have been done. Nothing would have happened to ruffle the even tenor of our financial affairs. The Whips, the doctors, even yourself, Mr. Godman Irvine, and the Clerks of the House would be paid.
The danger would lie in rejecting the Bill. The Government could not then make payments in anticipation of the Bill and they would face a serious crisis. I am not sure to what extent the Civil Contingency Fund could be used to plug the gap in the intervening period. I should like to hear about that from the Financial Secretary before we decide how we shall vote.
If we defeated the Bill, which in effect is what rejection of Clause 1 would amount to, that would be sufficiently serious to precipitate a General Election. That is certainly the sort of circumstance in which the Prime Minister would state

to the House the intentions of his Government. Might we suddenly find that old-age pensioners could not cash their pensions in the period leading up to the election after the Bill had been defeated? Would it be possible for the House to prorogue and then to reassemble so that by agreement between the parties action could be taken to remedy the situation? There is a great deal of agreement between the parties. There is the Lib-Lab pact. I am only sorry that there is not a Lib-Lab pact so that the members of that party voted the same in the House of Lords as they do in this House. If agreement could be reached, would it be possible to introduce a truncated emergency Consolidated Fund Bill to be brought forward in the new Session of Parliament as the sole item of legislation to assure the Government sufficient funds to carry on until the new Administration took over?
Some Labour Members seem to regard this debate as facetious, but we now see how serious it is. The Government have difficulty in getting their Members to support them. The difficulty arises sometimes over doctrinal differences. I do not know whether those differences would manifest themselves on this Bill. We know, however, that there are what are broadly called logistical difficulties. We can assume that Labour Members would vote in a particular way if they were here, but they might not be able to get here.
12.45 p.m.
It is reasonable to suppose, and it is a consummation which is in the minds of Ministers, that if the clause were pressed to a vote, the Government might not carry it. They would then be unable to reintroduce the Bill and, since it is a financial measure, they would be unable to put the matter right in the other place. Since the Government were unable earlier to muster the necessary support to carry a motion, their ability to carry the clause must be in doubt. That fact must affect our judgment in deciding how to vote on it.
Some of my hon. Friends, and almost certainly the nationalist Members, might feel inclined to vote against the clause to show their general disapproval of the Government's policies. If they did that they might secure a majority. Clause 1 would then be out of the Bill and the


Government would not have the authority to pay out £22,713,155,000. I imagine that if that happened the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer would be informed. Perhaps someone would tell the Chief Whip the location of the silver-plated pistol with the single shot—

Mr. Michael Ward: Like the one you gave to Mr. Cordle?

Mr. Tebbit: —so that he could do the decent thing. The hon. Gentleman is perhaps tempting me to stray beyond the confines of the debate. It is no dishonour for a party to be able to manage its affairs efficiently.

Mr. Robin Corbett: Professional slaughter.

Mr. Tebbit: If there were to be any slaughter, I would rather it were not done in the incompetent and blundering way that the Leader of the House sought to do it.

The Second Deputy Chairman: Order. There is nothing about slaughter in Clause 1.

Mr. Tebbit: I know. If we excised Clause 1, there would be a slaughter of a sort which has not been seen in a General Election for many years.

Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg: On a point of order, Mr. Godman if one looks at Clause 1 it will be seen that there is a total of £22,730 million. Included in that is part of the Vote for the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, which has control of slaughterhouses.

The Second Deputy Chairman: The hon. Member has made a very ingenious point. I think he will find, however, that this subject comes under Clause 2.

Mr. Tebbit: My hon. Friend is right, and you, Mr. Godman Irvine, are right to draw attention to the fact that we cannot discuss whether this money should be used for slaughterhouses. We can discuss only whether it should be made available to the Treasury. We cannot even discuss whether the Treasury can spend it, because the word "may" comes back into that. The Treasury does not have to spend the money it is given permissive powers to do so.
If I may make a passing reference to the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead (Mr. Finsberg), it would be possible for the Treasury to decide that it would not spend money on slaughterhouses, but it would be grossly improper for us now to discuss whether it should do so. This is another of the curious anomalies in our rules of order.
Returning to my main point, there are a number of possibilities, which I have enumerated, which might happen in the event of certain circumstances which at the moment are hypothetical. They are hypothetical at the moment because we have not yet voted on the clause. That does not mean that we should not discuss such a question, because we have to take account of all the circumstances that would flow from our actions according to the way we vote.
One of the most agreeable consequences—whatever anyone else thinks about it—if this clause were to he defeated, if I were able to persuade hon. Members to vote against it, would be that the Government would be placed in a position whereby the Prime Minister would have to come to the House. Were that to happen there is little doubt that the strict rules of order under which we are discussing this clause, being careful not to stray over the line in any way, would no longer apply to the Prime Minister's statement.
We have, therefore, more to consider in casting our votes than the narrow issue of this Bill. It may not be proper for us to go far away from the Bill in our discussions, but any hon. Member who cast his vote without taking full consideration of these consequences would be irresponsible indeed. It may not have occurred to every hon. Member that once the Prime Minister was htere—and that would almost inevitably follow if the clause was defeated, although I am not sure whether he would have authority to use the petrol in his motor car to get here—once he was at the Dispatch Box his statement would flow over into a number of other matters.
It may be that some hon. Members would like to have the Prime Minister at the Dispatch Box today so that what he said could flow over into other matters —which I shall certainly not discuss. I shall not discuss the content of what the


Prime Minister might say. Various hon. Members will have thoughts at the back of their minds and they may have discussed outside the Chamber with their colleagues when deciding which way to vote the sort of things they would like to hear. Other hon. Members might feel that it would be a bad thing if the clause were defeated and the Prime Minister had to come to the Dispatch Box and be questioned in a way which might allow his statement to flow into other matters.
For example, we might find when the Financial Secretary to the Treasury replies that he will explain—as my noble Friend Lord Boyle, then Sir Edward Boyle, explained in the debate in 1961 —the Bill's inflationary-deflationary effects on the economy. He might go into the matters which were raised then about whether there was, in the words of the then Mr. Diamond, any slack in the economy which ought to be taken up by the use of moneys out of the Consolidated Fund. There was also the question whether the economy was in an inflationary condition. The argument put by Mr. Diamond and Mr. Gaitskell was that it was possible that it might be a good thing if the funds were not extended.
The best explanation of that is in Mr. Diamond's speech in 1961, during proceedings on the Committee stage of the Consolidated Fund Bill when Clause 1 was being discussed. In a lengthy speech, a good speech well worth reading, Mr. Diamond said:
I am referring to the inflationary effect of passing Clause 1 and of issuing a sum of no less than nearly £43 million from the Consolidated Fund. … I do not think that I need underline at length, but one should shortly underline, the reasons why I say that this has an inflationary effect.
Mr. Diamond, as he then was, Lord Diamond as he is now, is no slouch in economic matters. That is for certain. He was saying then that he had no doubt that the issue of £43 million from the Consolidated Fund would have an inflationary effect. Today we are talking about £22,000 million, so there is at least a presumption that that might have an inflationary effect, if Lord Diamond was right in those days. He was rightly regarded by many of his colleagues who are now members of the Government, as a good economist. Lord Diamond went on:

No one can maintain that the country is now in a deflationary situation. If we were in a deflationary situation, the one thing needed would be to inflate or, as the economists say, reflate the economy. It is not argued on either side of the Committee that that is the case. Far from that, it is admitted on both sides, and particularly by the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself who has made many speeches inside and outside the House of Commons saying that he is not entitled to take steps which would lead to an increase of inflationary pressure.
How almost exactly parallel the situation is now. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, like the Chancellor in 1961, has been making many speeches inside and outside this House saying that he is not entitled to take steps which could lead to an increase in inflationary pressure. We would agree that Lord Diamond's analysis of the country's affairs then applies to them now. We are not in a deflationary situation. Mr. Gaitskell intervened in the debate at the point I have just quoted to observe:
My hon. Friend will surely agree that there is a great deal of slack in the economy at the moment."—[Official Report. 20th February 1961; Vol. 635, c. 203–7.]
I do not know precisely how that slack was being measured by Mr. Gaitskell. I would have imagined that one of the things he would have had particularly in mind would have been the unemployment figures.
1.0 p.m.
If they implied slack in those days, they must certainly imply it these days with the unemployment figures that we now have. So we now have to give consideration in all these matters to the effect upon demand and upon slack in the economy, and to the possible effect on the level of unemployment, in relation to the sums of money we are now being asked to authorise to be paid from the Consolidated Fund.
Things are very different now in one respect. In February 1961, when these matters were being discussed—

The Second Deputy Chairman: Order. I think that the hon. Gentleman has had a very good run round the history of this matter, and perhaps the time has come when he can confine himself to the present situation and whether he is voting in favour of or against Clause 1.)

Mr. Tebbit: Indeed, Mr. Godman Irvine. The danger in this matter, as


you will readily perceive—I shall not go back into it deeply—is that in the past there has been some suggestion that one cannot go into such issues at all. What I have established again—and I think that I have helped the Chair to help me to establish it by these references—is that one can discuss these matters. Having now perhaps discussed these matters—

The Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Army (Mr. Robert C. Brown): Exhaustively.

Mr. Tebbit: The hon. Gentleman says "exhaustively", but I would say that I have discussed these matters of 1961 reasonably thoroughly and have established that we can discuss the economy in its broad terms in relation to the amount of slack and inflationary and deflationary factors, so I shall discard the official record of 1961 in the knowledge that any hon. Member can get involved in debate on the general economy now, as he could then.
We come to the state of the economy now. Let us first deal with the matter of slack in the economy, a matter which is relevant, which was considered before and which you, Mr. Godman Irvine, have rightly enjoined me should rightly be considered in the context of events as they are and not as they were 16 years ago.
The first indicator to supply us with a measure of slackness in the economy would be broadly regarded by most people as the level of unemployment. There is a record number of people unemployed—more than we have had since the 1930s—as we jog hack to 1931 in Government policy. The second indicator of the amount of slack in the economy is the amount of money available for credit in the banks. I do not know, Mr. Godman Irvine, whether you have had the experience recently of going to the bank perhaps for a loan, but some hon. Members have. If one does that, one finds that the banks are very ready to lend money. That is a sure sign that there is ample liquidity in the economy and of the nature of the indicators, suggesting that the economy is in a very slack state.
Yet another indicator that we might consider is the indices of production. I do not normally carry the indices of pro-

duction around with me in my pocket, but no doubt some hon. Members do. It is, however, my clear recollection—if am wrong, I am sure that the Financial Secretary to the Treasury will put me right—that in general terms the indices of production are at about the level they were during the three-day week in 1974 and considerably above the peak levels reached in the earlier part of the 1970s.
We therefore have the three most obvious indicators of the level of economic activity in the country all pointing in one direction. We have the availability of credit from the banks, the availability of labour measured through the unemployment statistics, with unemployment increasing as the number of jobs available is on the decrease, and the indices of production. Unfortunately, in a rather more narrow context, if we look at the thing from the purely monetarist point of view, the indicators are pointing in a somewhat different direction.
These latter indicators suggest—contrary to the first three indicators I have mentioned, which also related to 1961, if 1 may mention the date again—to most economists that the country is in a deflationary situation, and the traditional attitude would have been to boost the economy by the release of more funds into it. But, of course, we are now in a much more difficult situation than 1961. It is complicated by the fact that, although there appears to be a deep recession, normally associated with deflationary forces, inflationary forces are still gaining in strength.
The arcane mysteries of Ml and M3 and the relationship of domestic credit expansion figures to those forces are a matter much more for my hon. Friend the Member for Blaby (Mr. Lawson) than for me. Unfortunately, we have the contrary position in which, in contrast to the indicators of recession and of deflationary factors, the financial indicators still point to a highly inflationary situation.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer dealt with this in a most effective and serious manner on many occasions in the House recently. He has told us of his intention to reduce the level of inflation to something under 10 per cent. by the end of this year, next years, some time, never—or was it this year, last year or the year before that? Whatever his intentions, and


I am sure they are very good, we have to face the fact that in the last three years we have been through a period in which inflation has accelerated and reached a peak of over 30 per cent. on an annual rate, and on a three-monthly rate has reached some horrendous figures.
We have, happily, improved our position considerably since then. Certainly, since the Government took the monetarist view—the IMF view—and, no doubt, read that famous letter from Dr. Witteveen, things have improved quite considerably. We now have inflation running at a level of a mere 17 per cent. or 18 per cent. on the annual rate, and there are hopes that it will come down later this year. There are hopes that we all share—I believe that they are substantially based—that from September-October onwards the rate of inflation will begin to ease.
However, it is generally accepted by a very large body of economists, though not by all of them, that despite this hopeful trend in the rate of inflation there are other matters which give rise to grave concern. The Government have managed so far to hold their monetary targets extremely well, and they deserve great credit for doing so. They have been under considerable pressure to allow a further expansion of money supply, either by increased borrowings or by that other vulgar expedient of the printing of money —of which more later, because that reminds me of another point that I intended to make, and which perhaps some of my hon. Friends intend to make, about the sort of money being authorised to be issued from the Consolidated Fund.
For example, would it be proper to authorise this money without inquiring further into how it came about that a very large number of banknotes issued recently were improperly printed? Some doubts have been raised as to their validity, not by official spokesmen or the banks but by people at large getting notes with the wrong serial numbers, the Queen's head on the reverse side, smudges and all these other matters; so much so that many people were quite delighted because they thought that they had acquired rarities and that the £1 note was worth £2 instead of the 50p to which we have become accustomed.

The Second Deputy Chairman: Order. The hon. Gentleman is not entitled to go into great detail on any particular subject. Perhaps he could return to Clause 1.

Mr. Tebbit: I should not wish to go into particular detail about that, Mr. Godman Irvine, because I have not seen any of the notes and I do not know precisely what the defects were. However, in broad terms we can agree that they were defective and people hoped that they would be worth more than the usual banknotes which we have nowadays.
To return to the general proposition, the Chancellor and the Government deserve quite considerable praise for the way in which they have held on against the proposition that it would be right now to reflate the economy, in the face of the deflationary situation which I described earlier by reference to the three main indicators. I believe that it would be dangerous if they gave in to those pressures, and what worries us as we consider whether to allow the issue of this money out of the Consolidated Fund is whether the Government will so give in.
That is closely relevant to the clause because of the word "may", which, as the right hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. Stewart) noted in the past, has great significance. I shall not go over the arguments in that debate, although I strongly recommend that you, Mr. Godman Irvine, and all hon. Members should find a little time later this weekend to read that debate. It is most instructive. I refer in that sense not merely to the way in which the balance of argument went back and forth on points of order and rulings from the Chair, interesting as they were—

Mr. Molloy: On a point of order, Mr. Godman Irvine. The hon. Gentleman has been sipping from a glass, and he tells us that there is water in it. Can you assure us that that is so, in view of his rambling and ridiculous speech?

Mr. Tebbit: The hon. Gentleman may have a sip if he likes. There are pressures upon the Government to reflate the economy, and the hon. Gentleman who has just intervened is one of them. On the other hand, it is conceivable that pressures to the contrary could arise. The world currency markets are under some


strain. Happily, sterling is at present holding up extremely well, but, if the United States authorities were to take firm action to restore the standing of the dollar, that could bring further pressure back upon sterling.
In that event the Goverment might decide, terrible though the thought may be, that it would be better to screw the economy down a little more, to take what one might broadly regard as deflationary measures. The way in which the clause is drawn—it is not possible to amend it—makes it possible for them to do that, and we have to take that matter into account in deciding whether to support the clause.
That is, perhaps, a factor in favour of the clause. I am trying to be as fair as I can, looking for the factors on both sides of the question. I have alluded to some of them, such as the pressure upon many hon. Members in favour of defeating the clause because of the pleasure which we should have thereby of enjoying the Prime Minister's company again for a while.
The essential point here is that the words of the clause are that
The Treasury may issue out of the Consolidated Fund".
The word "may" being of great significance. If the clause had been drawn the other way, with the word "shall", we should have been discussing a different subject—or, rather, one which I could not discuss because, as I understand it, Mr. Godman Irvine, you would rule me out of order if I did. Therefore, although it is an interesting matter which hon. Members may bear in mind, it is not one about which I am allowed to speak at the moment.
1.15 p.m.
The word "may" leaves a discretion. Perhaps it was concluded that there were factors at large in the economy suggesting that the Treasury should not issue all these funds. It would be perfectly free to take that course, and rightly so, the argument being that it would be wrong for the House to bind the Government to spend in this way because one cannot know in advance all the circumstances which may arise. In some ways it might be impossible for the Government to comply with the sterner injunction of the

other auxiliary verb. But, as I say, we have here a plus in that the Government could decide that deflationary measures were called for and that they should not spend all this money.
Before deciding on the clause, we wish to hear the Financial Secretary's view of the general state of the economy. It would be interesting to hear it, and it would be one of the matters taken into account by hon. Members on both sides in deciding whether they wanted to take action which could precipitate at least a serious political crisis, if not a General Election.
I feel that I must now draw my remarks to a conclusion. I am sure that other hon. Members will wish to enlarge upon the discussion we have had upon the economy thus far, and I ought to allow them the opportunity without intruding too far upon the afternoon, which, clearly, will be very enjoyable for hon. Members, just as our debates all through the night have been.
I ask the Financial Secretary to make as full and satisfactory a reply to the debate as was made in the past by Sir Edward Boyle, as he then was. In his reply, perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will take the opportunity to tell us—I shall give him a moment or two to see whether a message can be sent in time for him to find out authoritatively from the only person who can tell him, namely, the Prime Minister—whether, in the event of the House rejecting the clause, the Prime Minister would come here to tell us what the Government would do, or whether it would be the Chancellor—

The Second Deputy Chairman: Order. I have already given the hon. Gentleman an indication that the Prime Minister is not covered by Clause 1, and we are dealing only with Clause 1. I have listened to the hon. Gentleman with some care. The clause which we have been discussing is one on which the hon. Gentleman cannot engage in a general discussion about the state of the economy.
Without in any way wishing to traverse the right of the Committee to discuss the clause within its proper scope, I consider that the range of matters which he is raising on the clause are not appropriate to this clause because, as I say, it deals only with the issue of money out of the Consolidated Fund.
I revert to the ruling to which I called attention earlier, which was given by the Chairman on 21st December 1888. The Committee
may either affirm or reject, but it can do nothing else.

Mr. Tebbit: I hope that I have gone round it with very great care, and 1 am grateful to you, Mr. Godman Irvine, for confirming that I have not gone out of order on these matters. If I may say so, the position of the Prime Minister does arise on the clause because he is the First Lord of the Treasury, the man upon whose say-so at the end of the day these sums may be released from the Consolidated Fund. Therefore, if we should decide—this is the point of it—that he ought to have taken from him the right to issue these sums, it is inevitable that the right hon. Gentleman himself would come to tell us, in his capacity as First Lord of the Treasury, what on earth he would do, having got no authority to take money out of the Consolidated Fund.
It is a matter which bears very serious consideration. It might be that the House of Commons would vote to allow money to go in but not to go out. We might do it the other way round. That is the more usual arrangement in this country. But, whichever it is, I commend to my hon. Friends that they should consider very deeply the pros and cons of voting to remove this clause from the Bill.
As I see it, one of the most important advantages of removing the clause, apart from the broadly economic ones which I know the Financial Secretary is eager to deal with, is that we would have the pleasure of a visit from the Prime Minister himself to tell us about all manner of matters in relation to Government expenditure, when perhaps, Mr. Godman Irvine, you would allow him to stray a little over the edge and tell us about expenditure on the de-bugging of public buildings, not least No. 10.

The Second Deputy Chairman: I think that I can indicate at once that that is a matter which I would not be prepared to accept.

Mr. Molloy: This clause is very important, and I am bound to say that, having listened to the speech of the hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit), I

had not realised how broadly one could debate these matters without an indication from the Chair that one was straying beyond the bounds of order. We shall all read the hon. Gentleman's speech with great care, because it seems that we have been provided with the most incredible licence.
I agree that it is the right of the Opposition to harass the Government, to embarrass the Government and even to make rude remarks about the Prime Minister. You, Mr. Godman Irvine, have permitted that in the debate on this clause. For that reason I am sure that you will allow me to reply to some of the criticisms made by the hon. Member for Chingford.
As I say, the Opposition have every right to try to embarrass the Government. That is their prerogative. What is more, I thought that at one stage the hon. Member for Chingford raised a very important matter. However, we all realise, if people outside do not, that the entire object of the exercise is not only to embarrass the Government but, as we have seen, to denigrate the entire nation and the people of this country. When some of the remarks of Opposition Members are read overseas, it will be wondered whether we are not just about finished. That pleases the Conservative mind—

The Second Deputy Chairman: Order. The hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Molloy) must either affirm or reject the clause. It seems to me that he is beginning on a doubtful note.

Mr. Molloy: I accept your ruling, Mr. Godman Irvine, and I turn straight away to that part of the clause dealing with defence excesses and defence supplementaries.

The Second Deputy Chairman: None of that will be in order under Clause 1.

Mr. Molloy: With respect, Mr. Godman Irvine, I have been speaking for about two minutes, and you have risen three times. The hon. Member for Chingford spoke for nearly an hour, and you rose hardly at all. If the hon. Gentleman was in order in asking about the petrol in the Prime Minister's car, my submission is that the hon. Gentleman may be—

The Second Deputy Chairman: If the hon. Member for Ealing, North reads the Official Report, he will discover that that was not something that I allowed.

Mr. Molloy: I was sitting here and I heard it. The thought entered my mind that the same argument could affect all our Armed Forces—not that the Tories care very much about them when there is a Labour Government. They would not mind seeing this island defenceless—[Laughter.] Opposition Members laugh. They enjoy that. They know that it is true. Any excuse is good enough for them. If they can find an opportunity to attack the Government and to denigrate the British people, they will use it, because they think that they get political kudos out of it.
At the same time, what may come out of this debate is that Back Benchers who are unsuccessful in the Ballot will be permitted to raise matters during the Committee stage. However, I hope that it will be done sincerely, drawing attention to important matters, and that hon. Members will not indulge in a political exercise to attack the Government and to denigrate and undermine the status of the nation, which is what Opposition Members have been doing for the past few hours and, indeed, for most of the night.

Mr. Mates: I rise slowly and diffidently because it was my hope that the Financial Secretary would address a few words to us. I listened with great care to the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit). He posed some fundamental questions.

Mr. Tebbit: Since my hon. Friend listened with great care to what I said, he will have noticed that it was said in no acrimonious spirit and that I gave considerable praise to the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the way in which he had handled the money question.

Mr. Mates: I was coming to that—[Interruption.] The departure of the hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Molloy) will be regretted by no hon. Member on the Opposition Benches. We are trying to conduct this Committee stage in a friendly spirit. There have been no angry words spoken by either side.
I want to come back to the general matter which you, Mr. Godman Irvine, have ruled to be in order. It is at the heart of this whole Bill.
I do not know whether the Financial Secretary intends to intervene in this debate. If he were to give an indication to the Committee that he was prepared to answer some of our questions, I should draw my remarks instantly to a close.
We want to know the effect of passing Clause 1. I believe that my hon. Friends and I are entitled to know what will be the effect upon the economy if we do not allow it to stand part of the Bill, to say nothing of the effect upon the Government upon the way that Government business is conducted and, not least, upon those people who depend on the Government for their livelihood.
I am aware that we must not go into any detailed discussions, clause by clause and schedule by schedule. Were we to do so, it would mean that we were straying beyond the bounds of order and into the tenets of Clause 2. My hon. Friends and I will have some remarks to make to the Committee on Clause 2 if and when we come on that clause to the Question, "That the clause stand part of the Bill".
But the question now is of the essence of the whole debate on the Consolidated Fund Bill. It is what the effect will be if we allow this sum of £22,730 milion to be issued out of the Consolidated Fund, and then where it is to go. On where it is to go will depend, to a very large extent, the effect that it will have upon the state of inflation that we are suffering and the effect that it will have on—

Mr. Tebbit: May I draw my hon. Friend's attention to what is happening behind the Chair? The Prime Minister has now come to the House, and I have no doubt that he wishes to make a statement.

1.30 p.m.

Mrs. Margaret Thatcher: On a point of order, Mr. Godman Irvine. May I seek your guidance? Has any request been received from the Government to make a statement on the matters which have previously been raised concerning allegations made against the security services? We think it vital that such a statement should be made before the Summer Recess, for the confidence and


morale of the security services and because it would appear that there may, on the face of it, be some infringements of the Official Secrets Act. The Attorney-General may also wish to make a statement.
I should be grateful if hon. Members could know whether any such application has been received, because on the Conservative side we think it important that these most serious allegations should be replied to by a statement from the Government before the House rises for the Summer Recess.

The Prime Minister (Mr. James Callaghan): Further to the point of order, Mr. Godman Irvine. I am not at all sure that it is a point of order, but that is for you, Mr. Godman Irvine. A great many matters are being written and spoken about at the present time, but there is very little hard fact, as far as I can see. If anyone who has any information about what has taken place cares to place it before the appropriate authority—who in this case would he the Home Secretary—then, of course, the matter will be looked into. As to the present situation, I am quite satisfied with the arrangements at No. 10 and with what is going on in the security services.

Mrs. Thatcher: Further to the point of order, Mr. Godman Irvine. I am very happy that the Prime Minister has expressed his full confidence in the security services. I believe that is what he has said. May I ask him, as head of the security services—

Mr. George Cunningham: We normally do not discuss these things.

Mrs. Thatcher: How much more important is it that a former Prime Minister should not discuss these things? May I therefore ask the Prime Minister—because it is important that we should know—whether it is a fact that a former Prime Minister gave an interview to journalists about matters affecting the security services?

The Prime Minister: With respect, it was primarily a point of order. It is quite clear that I cannot answer as to what interviews have been given by any hon. Member to anybody else. That is certainly not my responsibility. But I repeat that if anyone has any information

that he cares to place before me or before the Home Secretary about the operation of the security services, the facts will be looked into. My responsibility is to make sure that these matters are now properly conducted. That I have done.

Mrs. Thatcher: Further to the point of order—

The Second Deputy Chairman: Order. At the moment the House is in Committee and it is discussing Clause 1 of the Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) Bill. At the moment it seems to me that we are straying a little out of order on that. If we are to have a general debate or discussion, or even a statement, we shall first have to dispose of Clause 1 and have an undertaking that the matter will be discussed on some other occasion.

Mrs. Thatcher: As it would appear that the Government are refusing to make any official statement on this matter, Mr. Godman Irvine, may I therefore take it that the Prime Minister is refusing to question the previous Prime Minister about whether he gave an interview to two journalists affecting the security services? If such an interview was given, will the Prime Minister kindly refer that matter to the Attorney-General?

The Second Deputy Chairman: Order. If there is nothing further to be said, we are back on Clause 1, and only matters relevant to Clause 1 of the Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) Bill can be discussed.

Mr. Mates: Mr. Mates rose—

Mr. Cormack: On a point of order, Mr. Godman Irvine. Would it be in order for us to dispose very quickly of the Bill, which I am sure we should like to do? Then the Committee could end, the House could sit, and we would have the opportunity of hearing the Prime Minister again.

The Second Deputy Chairman: If it would be of any assistance, I think that the matter could be very quickly disposed of.

Mr. Peter Blaker: On a point of order, Mr. Godman Irvine. Am I correct in understanding you to say that this matter is not in order within Clause 1?

The Second Deputy Chairman: I have ruled on that already. I have no doubt that we could dispose of the Bill very quickly, if the Committee were so minded, but at the moment we are discussing Clause 1.

Mr. Mates: On a point of order, Mr. Godman Irvine. We seem to have strayed a little. You have been very strong in keeping me to order, but you did indicate—if I may put it to you before I sit down—that when we came to Clause 2 various matters could be specifically raised. One of them is the allotment of funds. I am simply asking your help so that we can correct the strange situation—

The Second Deputy Chairman: Order. The hon. Gentleman has asked my help on a number of occasions. I have done my best to help him. The best help that I can now give him is to advise him that we are dealing with Clause 1.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 1 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 2 to 4 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedules (A) to (C) agreed to.

Bill reported without amendment.

Motion made, and Question, That the Bill be now read the Third time, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 93 (Consolidated Fund Bills) and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

Orders of the Day — STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS, &c.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 73A (Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments.)

Orders of the Day — CUSTOMS AND EXCISE

That the Anti-Dumping Duty (No. 3) Order 1977 (S.I., 1977, No. 1134), a copy of which was laid before this House on 7th July, be approved.—[Mr. Harper.]

Question agreed to.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 73A (Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments.)

Orders of the Day — CIVIL AVIATION

That the draft Civil Aviation (Air Travel Organisers' Licensing) (Reserve Fund) (Amendment) Regulations 1977, which were laid before this House on 14th July, be approved.—[Mr. Harper.]

Question agreed to.

Mr. Deputy Speaker(Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine): Perhaps we may take the next three orders together.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 73A (Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments.)

Orders of the Day — WEIGHTS AND MEASURES

That the draft Weights and Measures Act 1963 (Sugar) (Amendment) Order 1977, which was laid before this House on 12th July, be approved.

That the draft Weights and Measures Act 1963 (Cocoa and Chocolate Products) Order 1977, which was laid before this House on 13th July, be approved.

That the draft Weights and Measures Act 1963 (Cheese) Order 1977, which was laid before this House on 12th July, be approved.—[Mr. Harper.]

Question agreed to.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Perhaps we may take the next two orders together.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 73A (Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments.)

Orders of the Day — CINEMATOGRAPHS AND CINEMATOGRAPH FILMS

That the draft Cinematograph Films (Collection of Levy) (Amendment No. 5) Regulations 1977, which were laid before this House on 14th July, be approved.

That the Films (Exemption from Quota) Order 1977, a copy of which was laid before this House on 24th July, be approved.—[Mr. Harper.]

Question agreed to.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Perhaps we may take the next three orders together.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 73A (Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments).

Orders of the Day — SOCIAL SECURITY

That the draft Family Income Supplements (Computation) (No. 2) Regulations 1977, which were laid before this House on 15th July, be approved.

That the draft Child Benefit and Social Security (Fixing and Adjustment of Rates) Amendment (No. 2) Regulations 1977, which were laid before this House on 15th July, be approved.

That the draft Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 1977, which was laid before this House on 13th July, be approved.—[Mr. Spicer.—[Mr. Harper.]

Question agreed to.

Orders of the Day — HOUSE OF COMMONS (SERVICES)

Ordered,

That the Standing Order of 15th November 1974 relating to the nomination of Members of the Select Committee on House of Commons (Services) be amended, by leaving out Mr. Cecil Parkinson and inserting Mr. Michael Spicer.—[Mr. Harper.]

Orders of the Day — REDUNDANCY PAYMENTS

Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Question [27th July],

That the draft Redundancy Payments (Variation of Rebates) Order 1977, which was said before this House on 25th July, be approved.—[Mr. Harper.]

Question again proposed.

1.40 p.m.

Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. It will be within your knowledge that the House had to adjourn this debate because the Leader of the House and the Government had not provided papers. May I draw attention to the fact that the House still has not got the proper papers?
This debate was adjourned because the Leader of the House admitted his failure. What is now in the Vote Office is something that purports to be an Act of Parliament. I ask you to have a copy examined, because I suggest, without any proof, that it is a "phoney". It has no imprint, and we do not know whether it was printed by Her Majesty's Stationery Office. I ask the Leader of the House to come here and explain, or perhaps the security services could look at this matter as well as at the bugging allegations that appeared in the Press today.

Mr. Deputy Speaker(Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine): Mr. Speaker gave a ruling on the matter of papers and said that this was not for the Chair. Therefore, the hon. Member's point does not arise.

Mr. Finsberg: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. May I point out that after an hour and a quarter's debate last time the Leader of the House came here and very courteously admitted his fault. I urge the Secretary of State, who has deigned to come here today, to send for the Leader of the House, because this so-called Act is not a genuine document unless it can be proved to be so.
For the sake of accuracy, I have obtained two copies of it in case someone should suggest that the first was merely a printer's error. The second document is identical. Having examined a copy of the genuine Act, I find that it has the authority of Mr. Thimont, who is the Controller of the Stationery Office and the Queen's Printer of Acts of Parliament. Therefore, it is up to the Secretary of State to send for the Leader of the House to tell us whether this document is genuine and how we can be certain that this is the Act that received Royal Assent on 22nd July.

The Secretary of State for Employment(Mr. Albert Booth): Since I was responsible for laying the order, Mr. Deputy Speaker, it is appropriate that I should reply. When my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House proposed the adjournment of this debate on a previous occasion, he took note of the very strong feelings about the absence of a print of the Redundancy Rebates Act 1977 under which the draft order was proposed to be laid. But it was my responsibility to lay the order, just as the responsibility for the printing of Acts of Parliament lies with the authorities of the House.
I am advised that I was correct in believing that power was vested in me from the moment that Royal Assent was given to the Act. It does not require the printing of the Act by the Queen's Printer to vest the power in the Secretary of State to make an order.
The hon. Member for Hampstead (Mr. Finsberg) can check whether the Act is valid for the purpose. All he needs to


do is to check his copy against the final form of the Bill upon which the signification of Royal Assent was given. If he does that, he will find that the Act is valid.
If the hon. Member wishes to have further assurance, I can tell him that the print in the Vote Office is a photostat copy of a facsimile of a proof print being used by the Queen's Printer to make that copy. It can be checked and it is identical to the Bill which got Royal Assent and which is the operative Act under which I have power to make an order.

Mr. Finsberg: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. On 28th July the Lord President said:
Therefore, I now ask the House to adjourn this debate, and I hope that before the end of the week the matter can be brought back to the House again in a proper form, with the Act printed as the House would wish."—[Official Report, 27th July 1977; Vol. 936, c. 840.]
Those are the words to which I direct your attention, Mr. Speaker. By no stretch of the imagination can this copy be called an Act printed in the form that the House would wish.
I accept the Secretary of State's word, but it is not for me to examine a document that is somewhere else. It is for the Leader of the House to provide us with a document printed by Her Majesty's Stationery Office. That is the way in which we do our business. Could the Leader of the House be brought back again to say why he has failed to comply with his honourable undertaking?

Mr. George Cunningham: Mr. George Cunningham Islington, South and Finsbury) rose—

Mr. Speaker: There is no need for any further points of order. The Secretary of State has said that the Bill is in order. I can do nothing. Hon. Members could raise points of order until Sunday night and we would still not be any further ahead.

Mr. Finsberg: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In the previous debate you referred on several occasions to the fact that it was not your responsibility, but nevertheless you were quite firm in saying that it was someone's responsibility to see that proper papers were provided. In response to the firm

view that you expressed, the Leader of the House accepted the position and gave us an undertaking. He has not complied with his undertaking.

Mr. Speaker: I understand that the Bill is there.

Mr. George Cunningham: Am I right in thinking that, as things stand at the moment and as provided for on page 569 of "Erskine May", the responsibility for producing the normal final copy, made available as an Act of Parliament, rests with the Clerk of the Parliament? God forbid that it should rest with the Government of the day. Therefore, it has nothing to do with the Government and there is nothing they can do if the process of printing—

Mr. Speaker: I understand that the Bill is there. Therefore, it is not a question of who is responsible for providing it.

Mr. George Cunningham: I realise that you came in during the middle of this, Mr. Speaker. The text made available to you is not in the form in which an Act of Parliament is normally available because, I presume, the printed copy has not gone back to the Clerk of the Parliament to be approved in the normal way. If this is the case, it has nothing to do with the Government at all.
The Government have gone out of their way to get a properly attested text, have it printed and make it available to hon. Members. They have done everything that a Government could do. They are not able to force the Clerk of the Parliament to produce the Act more quickly than usual.

Mr. Speaker: Order. There is no need to argue the case. The point of order, as far as I am concerned, is that the Act is available. I do not know what form it is in, because I have not seen it. However, it is there and, therefore, we should go on.

Mr. Peter Viggers: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. On Wednesday the Leader of the House, explaining the basis upon which he was moving that the debate should be adjourned, said:
I hope that the large numbers of hon. Members who have turned up tonight will be here for the full length of the debate on this matter on Friday if that is when we shall bring it back to the House. I promise that I shall


be here and I shall be glad to welcome all these hon. Members who are now celebrating this great parliamentary victory.
He went on:
On that basis, I beg to move, That the debate be now adjourned."—[Official Report, 27th July 1977; Vol. 936, c. 841–842.]
The right hon. Gentleman is not here. I had to leap aside to avoid being run down by his car as I was coming into the House. I am not suggesting that the breach of faith by the Leader of the House constitutes a point of order, although he has broken a promise that he gave solemnly to the House. However, the right hon. Gentleman said:
On that basis, I beg to move …".
The basis was, inter alia:
I promise that I shall he here".
The right hon. Gentleman is not here. How can we continue the debate when one of the conditions of the adjournment has not been met?

Mr. Speaker: I allowed the hon. Gentleman to make his point, but I am concerned with decisions of the House and not arguments used during the debate. The decision of the House on Wednesday was to adjourn the debate.

Mr. Dennis Skinner: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Everyone else is joining in, so I might as well.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I hope that that was not the hon. Gentleman's point of order. When I am on my feet, the hon. Gentleman must resume his seat.

Mr. Skinner: I was here when the debate was adjourned on Wednesday and I remember the hon. Member for Brent-ford and Isleworth (Mr. Hayhoe) threatening us with a vote. It is remarkable —well, it is not really remarkable, but it needs to be said—that the hon. Gentleman is not here for the debate either.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Will the hon. Gentleman tell me what his point of order is? I am not listening to anything that is not a point of order.

Mr. Skinner: The other point that I wanted to come to was the fact that on Wednesday and today we have listened to Tories trying to delay this order. I assume that the time taken so far will come out of the one and a half hours allocated for the order and that, there-

fore, my point of order will also come out of that time.
I want to emphasise to you, Mr. Speaker, as I have before, that, when matters are raised concerning publications that we need in order to take part in debates, we should be even-handed. On many occasions we have had to take part in Common Market debates when we have not been supplied with all the necessary documents.

Mr. Speaker: Order. That may be, but it has nothing to do with what we are discussing. If the hon. Gentleman does not have a point of order, I must ask him to resume his seat.

Mr. Skinner: The point that I am trying to emphasise is that I want to see even-handedness about the arguments and your decisions when matters are raised concerning documents not being available or not being in the form that some people think they should be.

Mr. Speaker: I can give the hon. Gentleman that assurance.

David Mitchell: I started this speech a long time ago. Like the Bill, it appears to be subject to unexpected delays. I do not know whether the problems to which my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead (Mr. Finsberg) has drawn attention arise from blackleg printing carried out in secret in the basement in order to assist the House, but the matter need delay us no further.
The House is entitled to an explanation about the timing of the order. This matter started in July 1976. The order gives effect to the purposes that the Secretary of State indicated. The order was not included in last week's Business Statement and we may therefore assume that it was not considered to be a matter of urgency. Yet we were told when we started our debates 36 hours ago that it was urgent. The House is entitled to know what happened between Thursday of last week and Wednesday of this week. Was it, as is rumoured, that the Department of unemployment was overlooked by the Leader of the House, or is there some urgency arising in the policy?
Perhaps we may be given an assurance that the order was not deliberately laid at the last minute, after many hon. Members had planned to go away for


the holidays, because it was known to be ill-judged and ill-timed and likely to increase unemployment. If any hon. Members below the Gangway opposite were present, they would wish to refer to the serious unemployment-creating aspects of the order. Why has it taken from July 1976 to the last few hours before the Summer Recess of 1977 for the order to be laid?
I am anxious about the effect of the timing of the order on the business community. If there were present any hon. Members below the Gangway opposite, they would no doubt be saying that the Tories think only about the business community. I remind the House that we do not get any employment without employers and what weakens employers and drives them into bankruptcy will lead to increased unemployment.
I have had representations about this legislation from the Smaller Business Bureau and other outside organisations anxious about its impact and, particularly, its timing. The media create a caricature of hard-faced employers, but the reality is that firms desperately try to avoid having to make employees redundant. Like me, my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, North-East (Mr. Weatherill) is a small business man. He will agree that no business man, particularly no small business man, will lay off an employee if he can possibly avoid it.
The small business man does not think of employees merely as numbers but as George and the fact that Ben has a wife who is not well. Such things actually go into the calculation. For these reasons, such employers hold up paying people off until the last conceivable point. It is at that precise moment that they have to make the redundancy payment.
That is bad enough. But the Secretary of State is asking us to approve an order which actually increases the proportion of that redundancy payment which has to be met by the employer. This means that at the precise time in the life cycle of the business concerned when it is most in financial difficulties, the Secretary of State is putting added financial burdens on it.
The effect of that will inevitably be that companies which were on the verge

of being able to recover and succeed will now be driven to a larger liability and have to go bankrupt. Indeed, if one relates the figures of unemployment to the numbers of firms that have gone bust, one realises that today the number of small businesses—and they are important in this area; more important than the large businesses, because they have fewer financial resources—which have gone bankrupt has reached the highest figure not only since the war but since the depths of the depression in the 1930s and since the worst of the 1920s. The figures are the worst ever since bankruptcy statistics were kept in 1914. If one looks at the effect that this has had on the Fund, one can appreciate that this is a matter of considerable importance.
I do not wish to interrupt the Secretary of State's consultation with the Government Chief Whip. Is it in order, Mr. Speaker, to ask the Secretary of State whether he will be kind enough to listen to the point being made, because he will naturally find it difficult to answer if he does not? I am grateful to him for now doing so.
If the right hon. Gentleman will look at the statistics published by his Department, he will find that the number of instances in which employers have been unable to meet their liabilities has increased considerably. These instances in which employers cannot meet their liabilities are those in which firms will be going bust because of this liability.
I should like to illustrate this point with figures. In the first quarter of 1974 there were 1,851 employees for whom the Fund had to pay out because the employer was not able to pay. For the first quarter of this year that figure has increased from 1,851 to no fewer than 8,431. This is an indication of the very serious position that is arising because of employers having desperately strained financial resources and finding that they have to pay out more than they can afford. The order that we are asked to approve today makes that situation much worse.
Comparing the overall figures for 1973 with the present figures, one sees that there were 9,012 employees in 1973 who were affected by employers who could not afford to meet the redundancy payments. But this year it is running at the rate of 33,000 employees for whom


employers cannot meet the amount. Instead of it costing £2,467,000, it is now costing over £16 million for that reason.
This is a very serious situation. It reinforces and confirms what I have been saying to the Secretary of State and to his Minister of State. That is that the effect of this legislation is to turn employers from being in financial difficulties into employers who have gone bust. One will not get employment unless one has employers. That is the reason why there are more people on the dole at present than was expected and more than the country can afford.
One has to see this matter against the background of small businesses having been hammered in so many other ways by the Government, with their increased corporation tax, their increase in national insurance contributions, the multitude of regulations and controls and the destruction of incentives and the like, all of which are hammering the small business into the ground.
There is a cycle in jobs. This is desperately important. There is a life cycle for a business. When they are young, thrusting and vigorous, businesses grow. Like people, they grow old and tired and they die, and their places are taken by new ones. The desperately unfortunate thing about the order is that, first, it will make more businesses die because of the liability and, secondly, it will make employers wary of taking on new employees. It will make employers wary of even starting businesses, because they know that there are greater and greater liabilities being piled up to await them if they run into financial difficulies. No business can be other than in considerable difficulties at present.
I am anxious that my right hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft (Mr. Prior) should have the opportunity to contribute to the debate, so I should like to put to the Secretary of State one final point. It was part of the Government's economic package in 1976 that they would restrict the money supply. This was part of that operation. I am sorry that the Secretary of State's hon. Friends below the Gangway are not present. Does it mean that what he is making starkly clear, and tightening up with the urgency with which this order has been introduced at the last minute, is that the

results of any increases in wage demands and settlements will be even further rises in unemployment? That is the effect of what the right hon. Gentleman is doing.
It is, by contrast, a total destruction of the strategy that the Chancellor of the Exchequer told this House that he was pursuing—shifting resources from the public sector into the private sector and into the wealth-producing sector of the economy. That is what he said in his Budget Statement was his purpose. Here we have an order that will take money out of the private sector, from the part of the private sector which can least sustain it and is least able to afford it and where unemployment is most likely to follow.
I put it to the Secretary of State for unemployment that he should take this order back and at least, if nothing else, wait until some of his hon. Friends below the Gangway are present here and until it is not the fag end or the last part of the eleventh hour—or perhaps I should say the last half of the twenty-fourth hour, in view of the night through which we have all just passed—before he asks the House to approve it.

7 p.m.

The Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Albert Booth): The hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mr. Mitchell) has suggested that I have delayed the laying of the order until the very last moment. Had he taken the simple precaution of checking the laying of the order against Royal Assent to the Act, he would have found that the truth is the very reverse of what he has said and that Royal Assent came three days before I laid the order. I laid the order at the earliest possible date. Therefore, there is no question of my delaying the order until the last moment.
The effect of the order is to change the rebate paid to employers in respect of redundancy from 50 per cent. to 41 per cent. The case for doing this was debated a great many times during the passage of the Redundancy Rebates Act 1977. I hope, therefore, that I shall be acquitted of any discourtesy to the House if I do not go over the whole case at length but merely refer to the points which have been raised today.
As to the reason for my approving the measure in relation to the employment


factor in this country, I am, as a member of the Government, most keenly concerned about employment and most keenly aware of the extent to which the strength and health of this country's economy affect employment. It was as one of a series of measures designed to improve the health of the country's economy that the Act which gives power to lay the order was brought forward—simply because it could achieve a reduction in the public sector borrowing requirement. There are many arguments about the merits and demerits, but no one can deny that one of the effects of changing the level of rebate is to reduce the public sector borrowing requirement. I think that generally Conservative Members support the Government in that regard. The order will achieve a saving of about £16·2 million a year, or £l·35 million a month.
While I do not say that this is a big figure in relation to the whole of the package, I hope hon. Members will agree that it is not insignificant and that it is certainly a worthwhile saving on the public sector borrowing requirement.

Mr. David Mitchell: I have listened carefully to what the right hon. Gentleman has said. He is spending large sums of money to try to encourage new jobs. Does he not think that the taking of money out of the small business sector in particular is resulting in the loss of more jobs than the equivalent sum spent elsewhere by his Department creates?

Mr. Booth: If the hon. Gentleman will bear with me a little longer, I shall make it clear that that is not the case. I cannot deploy all the arguments today with regard to the actual sums we are spending in order to assist the small business man. What I can discuss briefly is the effect of the order on businesses in general and small businesses in particular.

Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg: The right hon. Gentleman has spoken about £1·35 million of public expenditure. Is it not a fact that the money being spent is all money that is being supplied by industry and none of it by the Exchequer?

Mr. Booth: Whether the money being spent in redundancy rebates is money com-

ing from industry or from the Exchequer depends on whether the fund is in surplus or in deficit. There is a sense in which this is all money coming from industry, but in any case, when the fund is in deficit, although there is a borowing from the National Loans Fund the interest is paid from the fund, which is contributed to by industry. The point I was making was that it affects the public sector borrowing requirement. That is undeniable, because if money is taken from the National Loans Fund it is money which comes from general public sector borrowing.
If the fund is in surplus, a substantial part of that surplus can be put into Government borrowing, and that, I believe, is public money in the borrowing sense. What I am claiming is that the rebate affects public sector borrowing. That cannot be contested.

Mr. James Prior: On that point, is not the right hon. Gentleman using the Redundancy Fund as a means of reducing the Government's borrowing requirement? In that respect, it is a kind of tax on all employers, because he is using the argument that it reduces the public borrowing requirement and he is using the money that he will now take from all employers as a means of reducing the amount of money which the Government would have to borrow from other people. That is using the Redundancy Fund for a purpose for which it was not set up.

Mr. Booth: There is a sense in which one can say that the Redundancy Fund is a tax on employers provided one operates it in that way. But all Governments have operated it in that way. If one wanted to ensure that the fund, in so far as it affected public sector borrowing and the payment of interest, did not have that effect on employers, the only alternative would be to put the payment of the interest into general taxation. One can choose whether we should tax the community as a whole or tax that part of industry which is honest. But the practice by this and preceding Governments of different political complexions has not changed. Every Government have used the same practice. It is a tax on industry now and it has been a tax on industry in the past during periods when the fund goes into deficit.
As to the actual amount which is paid, the average which an employer pays on a redundancy is about £600. He will qualify for a 50 per cent. rebate or £300, but under the order the amount of rebate will be dropped to £246 for an average redundancy. To that extent a greater cost falls upon the employer.
Some concern has been expressed on precisely this point about the effect of the reduction on small business men. I would remind the House of the provisions of Section 32 of the 1965 Act. This section permits assistance to be given in cases of genuine financial difficulty so that in the first instance the full cost of redundancy payment may be made directly from the Redundancy Fund, following which arrangements are made with employers for the recovery of their share of the cost.
Therefore, I do not accept that the reduction in rebate will be such as to put the small employer in a position where jobs will be lost which might otherwise have been preserved. I say that knowing that I cannot debate all the other measures that we are taking to assist employers in that direction.

Mr. David Mitchell: If that is the case, can the Secretary of State tell us how many of these employers—we have read that large sums and large numbers are involved—will actually get the money back and how many have gone bust so that they cannot get their money back?

Mr. Booth: I cannot give the hon. Gentleman that information, but if employers go bust in those circumstances the hon. Gentleman cannot logically content that it was the payment of redundancy contributions which caused the employers to go bust. I do not think that the hon. Gentleman is on a valid point.
Finally, I would say that although I have indicated that the reduction of the public sector borrowing requirement is one of a whole series of measures necessary to restore the country to a state of economic health as quickly as possible, we nevertheless look forward to the day when it will be possible to increase the rebate. I hope that that will be reasonably soon.
In all the circumstances, I have no hesitation in asking the House to signify its approval of the order as laid in draft.

2.17 p.m.

Mr. James Prior: This is a rotten and unnecessary little order. But before I come to the order perhaps I may express my thanks to the Secretary of State for the courtesy that he has shown in presenting the order today. The right hon. Gentleman has waited patiently for a long time and we are grateful to him.
I also apologise for the fact that my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Mr. Hayhoe) is not present. He has speaking engagements all day in the Leicester area and he has asked me to convey his apologies to the House.
I am glad that the Leader of the House has popped his head in through the door on this occasion so that we can to that extent say that he has kept his promise to be here on Friday morning, even though several hon. Members who showed such enthusiasm with regard to the order on Wednesday night are no longer with us.
Having got the courtesies over, perhaps I may add that at 2.20 p.m. on the Friday before the long recess I wish the right hon. Gentleman a good rest during the summer. He has a difficult winter in front of him but we can shorten the problem that he will have if he will agree to an election in October. I am certain that no Conservative Member would raise any objection and the right hon. Gentleman would be able to have a much longer rest. In so far as he will need to get as much strength as possible before the winter, I wish him a happy and peaceful Summer Recess.
Now for the order. I think that it is a cheat because what the Government are saying is that in order to reduce their borrowing requirement they will use the cash in the Fund for their own purposes. They are entitled to do that. It saves their having to borrow money elsewhere and also avoids their having to pay interest on the money borrowed.
The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for Employment is saying that if the Fund should run into deficit, it would work the other way because the Government would then have to lend the Fund money until such time as it increases its overall assessment on employers. But the Fund is now in surplus to the extent of about £10 million and has been in surplus ever since the


Government decided to bring in this measure. Going back into the mists of time, I recall that it was largely due to a miscalculation that the Government at one time thought that the Fund might be getting into deficit.
The only other explanation of the Government's wishing to increase the employers' share is that they fear the number of redundancies to come and feel that the Fund will go into deficit. Although employers, particularly small employers, are expected to pay out increased contributions of their own, it makes them all the less willing to employ fresh labour. This has been one of the great problems of the past two or three years. Small employers who wish to take on extra labour will face this further burden. It is not a major burden, and the Secretary of State has said that if small employers cannot afford to pay, the money can be paid out of the Fund and they can repay it later. We know those facts, but we also know that the psychological effect on small employers is damaging to employment generally.
The point made by the Opposition is that it is no good the Government destroying the confidence of small employers and then saying "We spend a great deal of money in other directions which helps those employers". The one does not make up for the other. That is why we object to this order. We believe that it is an imposition on industry as a whole at a time when the Government do not need the money, when the Fund is in surplus, and when employment prospects and the employment situation generally are causing everybody deep anxiety. We believe that this is another extra measure that will prevent some employers from taking on more people and creating more jobs. For that reason we regard it as a bad measure.
We see no urgency for these provisions. The Minister of State the other night said that this matter had become urgent because these provisions had been in existence for a year and had not got through. That surely was a contradiction in terms. It is a bad measure, and I am certain that the Secretary of State and his Department are not keen on it. Indeed, they have had it pushed on them by the Treasury.
The Treasury, as usual, has not done its homework properly. The Treasury has no understanding of the psychology of these matters and the Secretary of State has allowed the Treasury to get away with it.

2.24 p.m.

Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg: I wish to ask the Secretary of State for Employment a detailed question. I understand that this order, and a similar order which is being made in another place, must be approved by the Privy Council. If that is correct and it is an affirmative order, perhaps we may be told on what date the appropriate procedure will be gone through with the Privy Council. I shall spin out my remarks a little to allow the Secretary of State to obtain an answer.

Mr. Booth: My understanding of the matter is that if the order requires affirmation by both Houses, once that is done it is put into effect. The mechanics of putting it into effect will take about one week.

Mr. Finsberg: Am I right in saying that it does not require the approval of the Privy Council?

Mr. Booth: I shall check that. I believe that that is the practical effect of having the matter affirmed by both Houses today.

Mr. Finsberg: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that information.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft (Mr. Prior) and my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mr. Mitchell) both made important contributions and I wish to stress one further matter. If, as seems likely, there is a horrible upturn in the unemployment figures, more firms might have to make employees redundant. This order has been conceived in the Treasury and I acquit the Secretary of State for Employment of blame. I do not believe the Secretary of State or his Department, knowing the problems involved, would have gratuitously suggested this reduction in redundancy rebates. This is part of the overall package accepted by the Chancellor, and the unfortunate Department of Employment has had to carry the baby.
It means on the one hand that the Chancellor and the Prime Minister, both of whom are Treasury Ministers, are saying to the country and to industry "We wish to co-operate with industry so that there will be more jobs and exports. We want to create a certain climate of opinion that might not be desired by the left wing, and we dislike it as much as do the Tories. We feel that a mixed economy can work." Yet the effect of reducing the rebate from 50 to 41 per cent. throws an extra burden on industry at a time when the Prime Minister has been caning for the co-operation of industry.
It seems a trifle two-faced—and I am not here referring to the Secretary of State for Employment—for the Government to smile with one face at industry and say "We shall create the right climate for you to operate" and with the other face to say But we shall take away 9 per cent. of the rebate which you can obtain when you are unfortunate enough to have to make people redundant because of our economic policies". That is the picture that is painted, and it does not help to get the best co-operation from the CBI or the rest of industry.
I put that point to the Secretary of State perhaps to reinforce his hand if, alas, he is still in his office at a later stage when the Treasury again comes back for more money.

Mr. David Mitchell: When my right hon. Friend refers to a mixed economy, will he point out to Labour Members that their view of a mixed economy is rather akin to that of the French chef who was asked to make a paté 50 per cent. horse and 50 per cent. hare, and

who took one horse and one hare and made a paté in that way? That is the view of Labour Members of what a mixed economy might be.

Mr. Finsberg: Knowing what I know of the views of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for Employment on the subject of the Common Market, I must tell my hon. Friend that horse is a great delicacy in many parts of the Continent. I would point out that horses do not suffer from myxomatosis but that rabbits and hares do.

Mr. Prior: Hares do not suffer from that disease.

Mr. Finsberg: I thank my right hon. Friend for that information. I think I would prefer my paté to be 50:50.
It is not even in the interests of a mixed economy because the nationalised industries and local government have to make redundancy payments. Therefore, the extra 9 per cent. will mean a further burden on the rates, which will presumably mean that more money will come from a supplemental rate support grant order. Even with the admittedly higher profits of the nationalised industries, in the end the customer will have to pay, whether it be the customer of nationalised industries or private industry, if this 9 per cent. reduction is made.
The Secretary of State has not convinced me on this point. I think that he is making a great mistake in trying to obtain the co-operation of industry by acting in this way.

Question put:—

The House divided: Ayes 102, Noes 6.

Division No. 234
AYES
[2.30 p.m.


Armstrong, Ernest
Crowther, Stan (Rotherham)
Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife)


Ashley, Jack
Cryer, Bob
Harper, Joseph


Atkinson, Norman
Cunningham, G. (Islington S)
Harrison, Rt Hon Walter


Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)
Davidson, Arthur
Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy


Barnett, Rt Hon Joel (Heywood)
Davies, Bryan (Enfield N)
Hayman, Mrs Helene


Bates, Alf
Davis, Clinton (Hackney C)
Horam, John


Benn, Rt Hon Anthony Wedgwood
Deakins, Eric
Huckfield, Les


Bishop, Rt Hon Edward
Dell, Rt Hon Edmund
Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)


Booth, Rt Hon Albert
Dormand, J. D.
Jackson, Miss Margaret (Lincoln)


Bottomley, Rt Hon Arthur
Edwards, Robert (Wolv SE)
Janner, Greville


Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)
Ellis, John (Brigg &amp; Scun)
Jay, Rt Hon Douglas


Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W)
English, Michael
Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)


Brown, Ronald (Hackney S)
Ennals, David
John, Brynmor


Butler, Mrs Joyce. (Wood Green)
Evans, Ioan (Aberdare)
Judd, Frank


Callaghan, Rt Hon J. (Cardiff SE)
Foot, Rt Hon Michael
Kaufman, Gerald


Carmichael, Neil
Fraser, John (Lambeth, (N'w'd)
Latham, Arthur (Paddington)


Clemitson, Ivor
Freeson, Reginald
Lever, Rt Hon Harold


Cocks, Rt Hon Michael (Bristol S)
Garrett, W. E. (Wallsend)
Litterick, Tom


Colquhoun, Ms Maureen
George, Bruce
Luard, Evan


Corbett, Robin
Ginsburg, David
McDonald, Dr Oonagh




MacFarquhar, Roderick
Owen, Rt Hon Dr David
Stewart, Rt Hon M. (Fulham)


Maclennan, Robert
Pendry, Tom
Stoddart, David


McNamara, Kevin
Perry, Ernest
Thomas, Mike (Newcastle E)


Mason, Rt Hon Roy
Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds S)
Urwin, T. W.


Meacher, Michael
Richardson, Miss Jo
Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.


Mikardo, Ian
Rodgers, Rt Hon William (Stockton)
Walker, Terry (Kingswood)


Millan, Rt Hon Bruce
Roper, John
Ward, Michael


Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride)
Sandelson, Neville
Williams, Alan Lee (Hornch'ch)


Molloy, William
Shaw, Arnold (Ilford South)
Williams, Rt Hon Shirley (Hertford)


Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)
Shore, Rt Hon Peter
Williams, Sir Thomas (Warrington)


Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)
Silkin, Rt Hon John (Deptford)
Wilson, Rt Hon Sir Harold (Huyton)


Moyle, Roland
Silverman, Julius



Ogden, Eric
Skinner, Dennis
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


O'Halloran, Michael
Spearing, Nigel
Mr. A. W. Stallard and


Orbach, Maurice
Steel, Rt Hon David
Mr. Thomas Cox.


Orme, Rt Hon Stanley






NOES


Biggs-Davison, John
Temple-Morris, Peter


Butler, Adam (Bosworth)



Durant, Tony
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Neubert, Michael
Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg and


Tebbit, Norman
Mr. David Mitchell.

Question accordingly agreed to.

Resolved,
That the draft Redundancy Payments (Variation of Rebates) Order 1977, which was laid before this House on 25th July, be approved.

Orders of the Day — ROYAL ASSENT

Mr. Speaker: I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that the Queen has signified Her Royal Assent to the following Acts:

1. Appropriation Act 1977
2. Finance Act 1977
3. Patents Act 1977
4. Administration of Justice Act 1977
5. Coal Industry Act 1977
6. Control of Office Development Act 1977
7. Water Charges Equalisation Act 1977
8. Rent Act 1977
9. Protection from Eviction Act 1977
10. Post Office Act 1977
11. Criminal Law Act 1977
12. Insurance Brokers (Registration) Act 1977
13. Local Authorities (Restoration of Works Powers) Act 1977
14. Housing (Homeless Persons) Act 1977
15. National Health Service Act 1977
16. British Railways Order Confirmation Act 1977
17. British Railways Act 1977

18. Greater London Council (Money) Act 1977
19. Kensington and Chelsea Corporation Act 1977
20. North West Water Authority Act 1977

Orders of the Day — UNFAIR CONTRACT TERMS BILL

Mr. Speaker: I have to acquaint the House that a message has been brought from the Lords by one of their Clerks, part of which is as follows:
The Lords do not insist on their amendments to the Unfair Contract Terms Bill to which this House hath disagreed, and they disagree to the amendments made by this House to one of the Lords amendments, for which disagreement they assign their reasons.

Order read for consideration of Lords disagreement to Commons amendments to a Lords amendment, and Reasons.

Ordered,
That the Lords Reasons for disagreeing to the Commons amendments to a Lords amendment to the Unfair Contract Terms Bill be considered forthwith.—[Mr. Ward.]

Clause 10

THE "REASONABLENESS" TEST

The Lords disagree to the Commons Amendment in line 7 of the Lords Amendment to Clause 10, page 6, line 5, for the following Reason:—

Because it is not sufficient to have regard exclusively to business assets in a clause restricting liability to a specified sum of money.

2.43 p.m.

Mr. Michael Ward: I beg to move, That this House doth not insist on its amendment in line 7.
I shall be moving similarly concerning the Commons amendment in line 10.
The amendment to which the Commons amendment referred is concerned with the test of reasonableness on certain clauses in contracts to which a money limit should be fixed. Their Lordships made an amendment to the Bill which was acceptable both to the sponsors of the Bill and to the Government which would have forced the courts to have regard to certain matters in relation to such clauses, a point to which objection was taken by the hon. Member for Croydon, North-West (Mr. Taylor).
The hon. Member moved an amendment on the clause which, had we been able to muster 40 or more Members at the time, would not have been accepted by the House. However, it was carried, and the amendment was remarked upon severely by Lord Hailsham, whose clause had been amended. I think the House will agree that, having read the Lords proceedings, we should take our originally proposed course of action, which was to leave Lord Hailsham's clause unamended. I have consulted my hon. Friend the Minister of State about the points which were made by the hon. Member for Croydon, North-West, which were general points relating to the position of sole proprietors and partnerships in this situation. I hope he will be able to say that he can take the general point further but that it is not a point that should be considered in the context of the Bill.

The Minister of State, Department of Prices and Consumer Protection (Mr. John Fraser): As a matter of honour, I should say that although the hon. Member for Croydon, North-West (Mr. Taylor) is not here he gave a promise that he would agree not to press the amendment if I agreed to give him one assurance and one undertaking. The assurance was that he should have the opportunity to raise this matter in the future. The Law Commission's report on the law of contribution has been approved in principle by the Govern-

ment and we will introduce legislation at the earliest possibility, which we hope will be soon. The hon. Member will therefore have that opportunity to debate again the question of contribution.
Secondly, I undertake that I will go to the Lord Chancellor and see whether the problem which has arisen about the joint and several liability of partners, its effect on the general law and its effect resulting from the Bill are suitable subjects to be referred to the Law Commission. I gave that undertaking to the hon. Gentleman and he in turn promised not to press the amendments any further. I now place the matter on the record.

Mr. Michael Neubert: I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, North-West (Mr. Taylor) will be pleased to see the Minister's remarks on the record. As this is the third successive Friday on which I, in common with the Minister and the sponsor of the Bill, have been in attendance for its benefit, and as you, Mr. Speaker, on those occasions were acquiring legal laurels to adorn your distinguished brow, may we all profoundly hope that this is positively the Bill's last appearance in the House?
I pay tribute to the tenacity of the hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr. Ward) in promoting the Bill's passage through Parliament. I have a special reason for doing so. He is my constituent, and although he has recently moved from the constituency his name remains on the electoral register. I hope therefore that if there should be a General Election—and I very much hope that there will be—the hon. Member will give considered weight to the support I have given to his estimable Bill from both Front and Back Benches.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That this House doth not insist on its amendment in line 7 of the Lords amendment to Clause 10, page 6, line 5.

Resolved
That this House doth not insist on its amendment in line 10 of the lords amendment to Clause 10, page 6, line 5.—[Mr. Ward.]

Orders of the Day — NEW WRIT

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Michael Cocks): I beg to move,
That Mr. Speaker do issue his Warrant to the Clerk of the Crown to make out a new Writ for the electing of a Member to serve in this present Parliament in the borough constituency of Birmingham, Ladywood in the room of Alasdaire Brian Walden, Esq., who, since his election for the said borough constituency, hath accepted the Office of Steward or Bailiff of Her Majesty's Three Chiltern Hundreds of Stoke, Desborough and Burnham in the County of Buckingham.
In moving the writ for Birmingham, Ladywood, which has been vacant since 16th June, I appreciate that this is an unusual, though not unprecedented, time. The House has felt in the past that electors should not be unrepresented for a period of more than three months. There is an understanding that writs are moved, so far as possible, within three months, and Select Committees have reported on this, as the House will know. It is an accepted way in which the parties may proceed.

Question put and agreed to.

Orders of the Day — PELICAN CROSSINGS

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Stoddart.]

2.50 p.m.

Mr. Tony Durant: May I begin by thanking you, Mr. Speaker, for enabling me to raise this matter on the Adjournment on Thursday, although I am speaking on Friday? I am sorry that hon. Members have now decided to leave the Chamber, because I am raising a vital issue.
I have been concerned about pelican crossings since 1974. In the centre of Reading there is a pelican crossing in an important street, Friar Street. Local newspaper sellers drew my attention to the dangers of this crossing.
It was at that stage that I began to take an interest in this subject. At that time it was felt that there was something wrong with the timing of the crossing. I got in touch with the council, which replied to the effect that it had investigated the timing and felt that it was cor-

rect, as laid down by regulation. In its letter the council said:
This crossing has now been checked and found to be operating correctly. The total pedestrian crossing time is 17 seconds, which is considered to be adequate, and consists of seven seconds "green man" and 10 seconds "flashing green man".
I then investigated this crossing. I spent a Saturday morning crossing it backwards and forwards with old ladies, prams and the rest. I became convinced that there was still a dangerous element to the crossing.
This led me to write to the Department of the Environment, to the hon. Member for Dudley, East (Dr. Gilbert) who was then responsible for these matters. On 20th July 1976 I received a letter from the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Marks), the Under-Secretary, who said:
We too receive complaints that pedestrian crossing time is inadequate; but we often find that this comes from a misunderstanding of how the crossing signals work rather than because the timings themselves are inadequate. The total pedestrian phase is in two parts, the steady green man followed by the flashing green man, in both of which pedestrians on the crossing have precedence over vehicles. Although no one should start to cross during the flashing phase, it is itself long enough for anyone walking at a moderate pace to cross safely and pedestrians who are already on the crossing should be able to complete it without undue haste. People who for one reason or another move especially slowly should make a point of starting at the beginning of the steady green man phase in order to get the maximum crossing time.
Once again I was not entirely convinced and I spent a considerable time studying the matter. Then, regrettably, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, South (Dr. Vaughan), at another pelican crossing, two children were knocked down. One required 17 stitches as a result of a head injury while the other is in Battle Hospital with a broken hip. My hon. Friend the Member for Reading, South has asked me to apologise for his inability to be here and to say that he supports me.
That gives the background and the reasons why I have been pressing this matter. The type of pedestrian crossing known as a pelican crossing is gradually being introduced at some of the busiest road junctions and crossing points in the country. I understand that there are now


about 2,000 such crossings. Their introduction has been rapid, yet many motorists and pedestrians remain ignorant of the meaning of the flashing green and amber signals with which they are confronted.
The Department of the Environment stresses that
it is … essential for pedestrian safey and confidence that drivers should recognise that pedestrians have priority during the flashing phase and give way to them patiently: this is primarily a matter for police enforcement".
How can drivers be expected to know that pedestrians have priority when there is no indication of this?
The Department of the Environment calls for an intensive publicity campaign. The sort of campaign needed would have to be intensive indeed and such a campaign is not likely to be 100 per cent. effective. Many drivers will continue to remain ignorant of the correct procedure.
The Department also mentions police enforcement. Quite frankly, I believe that the police have quite enough to do without hanging around pelican crossings waiting for motorists to break the law. I would not expect them to do this. Advertising can be expensive, but it is something that may have to be done.
What I believe to be confusing everyone is the timing. I shall give the present sequence. If the road is six metres wide, the green man comes on steady for four seconds. If the road is 15 metres wide, the figure is seven seconds steady. The green man flashes for six seconds when the road is six metres wide and for 14 seconds when the road is 15 metres wide. Then the green man stops flashing and the red light goes on.
For motorists, when the green man is on, the green light facing them changes to red and they must stop. When the green man begins to flash the motorist gets a yellow flashing signal. It is then that he is supposed to decide whether it is safe to cross, bearing in mind what pedestrians are using the crossing.
The hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. Corbett) asked a Question on 7th April concerning old people and pelican crossings. The answer was:
The assumption is that crossings can be made at a walking speed of 1·2 metres per second or better.

This is 4·3 km. per hour, or about 2·7 miles per hour. The Minister continued:
This has been found to be within the average capability of the over 65 age group. The fixed green and subsequent flashing green periods are timed to allow safe crossings to be made at this speed even allowing for an initial delay in starting."—[Official Report, 7th April 1977; Vol. 929, c. 649.]
I come now to the defects of the system. Many old people and children will be hesitant about beginning to cross. They will still check whether it is safe to do so. Thus the "initial delay" becomes inevitable.
The Greater London Council has sent to me research that it has done on pelican crossings in its area. The experiment was carried out in conjunction with the Transport and Road Research Laboratory. The report says:
The delays experienced by pedestrians were in excess of those measured at Zebra-crossings with comparable traffic flows.
In other words, people were not sure and they held back. The figures showed this. The report continued:
Analysis of the data showed that delays were longer for the elderly (defined as 60 years or over) than for other adults and that those who crossed during the correct phase had longer delays than those who did not observe the signals.
We are, therefore, talking about young children and the old.
Regrettably, this survey did not study those under the age of 15. The investigation also showed that pedestrians and motorists could be moving at the same time even though theoretically the motorist should give way. The report says:
Although the majority of pedestrians at four of the five sites began their crossing when the steady green signal was showing, observance in general was far from perfect. Non-observance was mostly in the form of crossing against a red signal.
This is people jumping the lights. There is not much that we can do about that. It is behaving stupidly. The report continues:
only relatively small numbers of pedestrians arrived or started to cross when the lashing green signal was showing, which indicates that many pedestrians know not to start crossing during this signal. At every site it was found that the elderly were more observant of the signals than were other adults.
What the report is saying there is that, despite the fact that the elderly were more


cautious, they were also more slow and more vulnerable. This is an interesting point which has emerged.
The colour green is naturally associated with "go". The flashing green light may be associated with crossing in the minds of children. A child comes up to a crossing, presses the button and the green comes on. He talks to a friend for a moment. After the seven-second interval, the light starts flashing, and he darts across. Indeed, I believe that that is how accidents happen to children.
The Highway Code is very misleading about this. In advice to pedestrians it says:
At some of the crossings with the green man symbol, the green man will flash for a short time before changing to the red man, i.e. wait' signal. Do not start to cross if the green man is already flashing.
That instruction seems simple enough, but in fact it is confusing. The instruction to the motorist is:
A flashing amber signal will follow the red stop signal at some pedestrian crossings. When the amber light is flashing, give way to any pedestrians on the crossing but otherwise you can proceed.
Once again, people hold back and then take off. But while they are holding back, the motorist may say "He is not moving, so I shall go", and that is how, again, accidents can happen. It is a confusing situation.
Among the changes suggested by the Department of the Environment is that possible improvements in the red light signal for motorists might coincide with part of the flashing green signal for pedestrians, so that pedestrians might have longer to cross in safety while further pedestrians are dissuaded from starting to cross. But the flashing amber still coincides with part of the flashing green period so that indecision is not dispelled. No clear-cut course of action is recommended as to how to act at the crossing.
My conclusion is that the pelican crossing creates indecision in the minds of both the pedestrian and the motorist and that a return to a clearer system is necessary. The pedestrian or the motorist when at a busy junction needs definite instructions. Two weeks ago I was in Frankfurt, Germany. I walked around the streets because I was then trying to get this debate. I observed the traffic flows

and the way the signals operate there. They are much more positive. If the signal is green, one goes; if it is red, one does not. The motorist simply goes off if one is crossing when one should not. He does not hesitate. The whole thing is much more disciplined. Everyone knows what he is supposed to do.
As I was saying, the pedestrian or the motorist when at a busy junction needs definite instructions—"wait" or "cross" for pedestrians, and the conventional redamber-green sequence for motorists, which would thus standardise all traffic lights. The motorist is used to such a sequence. I should like to see the flasing green light abolished altogether. I should also like to see that horrid whistle go. On a busy road it is apt to fill me with some panic. It is rather like having a referee's whistle blow as a signal for take-off. I understand that it may be of help to blind people, but otherwise I cannot see its significance. I do not see that all in all it is a very good idea.
First, therefore, I call for no more installatio0ns of pelican crossings until we get more evidence as to whether they are a success. I believe that it is a dangerous system, leading to accidents—I have quoted the instances of two children in Reading who are in hospital. Secondly, we should do away with the phase of a flashing green light, because people associate with green a signal that one may go and with red that one must stop. When it is flashing, it is green still, and children tend to dart across the road in the expectation of being able to make it. It is dangerous.
I urge the Government to consider the matter and decide to install no more pelican crossings until they know the evidence, and then consider doing away with the flashing, green man.

3.4 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. John Horam): I am grateful for the interest taken by the hon. Member for Reading, North (Mr. Durant) in a matter as important as this, and I am glad that at long last, at the end of a rather tiring night and half day, we have an opportunity to debate it.
As was evident from the hon. Gentleman's speech, this is a rather complicated matter for debate in the House in the


usual way. I have said on other occasions, in connection with debates about roads, that it would be helpful if there were above Mr. Speaker's Chair a place where one could mount a map or plan with lights which one could flash to illustrate the matters under discussion. However, we do not have that, and I shall struggle to do my best—I must say that the hon. Gentleman did admirably—in trying to explain the problems which this complicated procedure poses.
The hon. Gentleman instanced several different kinds of problem which, in his view, could occur on a pelican crossing. He mentioned in particular some research done by the GLC in conjunction with the Transport and Road Research Laboratory. My understanding of that research is slightly different from his. I understand that there is some hesitancy —roughly two seconds—when a pedestrian starts to cross when the steady green light goes on, but despite that the overall time is sufficient for a person to cross satisfactorily.
The hon. Gentleman may be interested to know—he did not give this figure, but it is known to the GLC and is the product of TRRL evidence—that only one person in 1,600 in its extensive and elaborate tests failed to complete crossing the pelican crossing in the normal time allowed. Obviously, various crossing lengths and conditions were examined and allowed for, and that was the outcome.
Therefore, although the hon. Gentleman is right to say that there is a tendency to hesitate, the evidence so far is that that is fully taken into account in the timings allowed. Nevertheless, the fact that there is hesitancy will be taken into consideration when further experiments are undertaken. In experiments which are being conducted by the GLC, for example, it may well be one of the points taken into account.
I come now to the motorist who is facing the red light at the crossing. The hon. Gentleman feels that he may tend to go when the amber light flashes, because, if he knows his instructions, the instruction is that he should wait and that the pedestrian has priority, but the instructions also permit him to cross when the amber light flashes when there is no pedestrian on the crossing.
I accept that this also may happen. No system is foolproof. However, I think it possible that we could overcome that problem by extending the length of time for the red sequence so that it overlapped the flashing green sequence which the pedestrian faces. Thus, instead of the amber beginning to flash for the motorist and the green beginning to flash for the pedestrian at one and the same time, for, say, two seconds or so the pedestrian would face the green flashing light and the motorist would continue to see the steady red light, which would then go on to amber flashing. In that way, there would be a small hiatus which would hold up the motorist and there would not be the tendency—if there be such a tendency, which we do not really think there is—for the motorist to move ahead when someone was still on the crossing.

Mr. Durant: As the instructions in the "Highway Code" stand at the moment, on the flashing amber the motorist must look to see whether it is clear. If there is a pedestrian at the side of the road, he may hesitate for the time to which the Minister referred, and the motorist may feel that he can go because the pedestrian is holding back for that two or three seconds. But the pedestrian may then decide to go. The Minister said that there was an allowance of two or three seconds. I am not sure that that is good enough, though certainly it is a help.

Mr. Horam: We think that it is a help. If the pedestrian goes when the light is flashing green, clearly that is contrary to all the instructions contained in the "Highway Code". However, people may not read the instructions or may not understand them. None the less, we have to make some provision. That is the provision, and the more and the sooner that it is understood, the better. On the whole, we think that the change I have described would be of some help in meeting what may be the problem of the simultaneous interaction of these two lights.
The third matter which the hon. Gentleman raised concerned the effect on the pedestrian of the changeover from the steady green to the flashing green light. It may cause him to speed up. It may even make him apprehensive in some way. We think that, if there is a problem here, it may be possible to meet it by lengthening the steady section of the total time.
Whether we do this as a proportion of the total, by altering the relationship between the flashing green and the steady green, or we add a bit to the total length of time, which would also deal with the problem of hesitancy at the starting of crossing, is a matter which we can look into and which will in fact be looked into by the GLC experiments which may take place if we get the necessary regulations through the House to allow them to take place.
As for the research, as I have said, we think that it shows fairly comprehensively that there is no real problem. The figure which I quoted earlier of one person in 1,600 failing to complete the crossing in the time allowed—an experiment involving all ages of people and all types of crossing—is pretty impressive. So I reiterate that our evidence is that the system works quite well. But, if there are any problems about the change-over from the green to the flashing green or from the flashing amber to green, we can deal with them in the course of the experiments which we hope to see conducted by the GLC, which has maintained a considerable interest in this problem because, obviously, it has a great many pelican crossings.
I explained that the details of pelican crossings are controlled by regulations of the House. Even the period of time which is flashing green, and so on, is contained in regulations. Therefore, it would be necessary to put a motion in front of the House before they could be changed, and we shall have to seek to do that. That would also give an opportunity for a further debate on the important matters raised by the hon. Gentleman.
These are the three ways in which we hope to meet the problem by small adjustments to the situation. But we shall see from the further experiments which we hope will take place whether that is necessary.
There is a further problem which also hampers the situation in the hon. Gentleman's constituency, and it concerns the crossing at Friary Road which first alerted him to the problems which can be associated with pelicans. It is a crossing with a central island. Despite the fact that it is, therefore, different from the ordinary road with no central island, it

is treated as one from the point of view of a pelican crossing and the change from one phase to another. I understand that it is the view of the local authority that this is unsatisfactory and that it intends to alter the situation there by narrowing the road and by treating it differently. I understand that it also has the finance available to do that at a fairly early stage, probably in this financial year. It looks as if it is a problem which is being sensibly controlled.
The pelican system as a whole has an excellent record of safety. I should like to place that on record. There is impressive evidence that it works satisfactorily. It was brought in in order to improve the position concerning the ordinary zebra system and to be more helpful to both pedestrian and motorist. It is fully under Government control. We have to approve every crossing. This is not a satisfactory position for everyone, and during the early hours this morning we were debating the extent to which there should be Government control over these relatively small but important safety matters.
It is not true that they have come in very quickly. They have been around since 1969, and the research work started six years before that. There are now 2,500 of them throughout the country, and the number is continuing to grow. I think that they are an excellent part of our general approach to the problem of safety. They have proved themselves.
If there are problems affecting even a tiny minority of people, we shall certainly look into them. I think that the proposals that are being mounted in this respect in co-operation with the Greater London Council will meet directly the sort of point that the hon. Gentleman raised.
The whistle is, of course, for blind people, and the point has been made to me in the House that it has been helpful to them. We shall continue to use it. If we were to abolish completely the flashing green section, that would be against the experience of local authorities. The Association of Metropolitan Authorities has said quite clearly to us in a recent letter that it did not wish this to happen and that it was quite satisfied that there should be a flashing green section. The


association made one or two observations to the hon. Gentleman's comment about the timing. I do not know what is the GLC's position on that, but it is unlikely that it would want to have the flashing green section abolished entirely. There is general support for the principle. It is a matter of small adjustments at the margin, if these are proved to be necessary.
Finally, it is a very fair point to say that there may be some misunderstanding about the whole system. Some people may be worried about it and regard it as hideously complicated. We shall be pleased to do anything that we can in the way of putting out leaflets, showing films, and so on. We have even invoked "Dad's Army" to show people how to cross one. These are quite small items in relation to the total effort that will be required to make everyone understand these things. It will probably be a very long time before they are accepted as a permanent part of our road scene with clear advantages in terms of road safety.
I think that we should persist with the general principle, recognising that on the whole it has worked very well. I am sure that it has saved many lives. I was sorry to hear about the instance that the hon. Gentleman quoted in the constituency of his hon. Friend the Member for Reading, South (Dr. Vaughan), where two children were knocked down. That is very rare, and possibly they were not using the crossing correctly.
If we persist, I think we can expect to see the system becoming even better understood than it is at the moment. Nevertheless, I thank the hon. Gentleman for his interest in this matter. I shall certainly continue to keep a close watch on what happens in this sort of area, because the Government have a responsibility in addition to that of the local authorities.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at nineteen minutes past Three o'clock on Friday afternoon, till Wednesday 26th October, pursuant to the Resolution of the House this day.